Chapter 66 RJ
RJ
Ithought I was done spending every waking moment in front of my monitors, but it turns out that when things go to shit, I’m the only clean-up person available. Mostly.
Walker’s helping, and I’m grateful, but with so many places to look for Mattie, it’s all but impossible to wade through every lead.
So I’ve reverted to my origins—online stalking.
I dig up every friend of Mattie’s I can find, then go about getting access to their phones.
Some happily open my link to the worm that lets me in, while others require Jansen to detach himself from Clara and go do some real work.
Between his fatigue and his separation anxiety, he’s driving me crazy, but Clara doesn’t seem to mind.
Instead, she zones out with her head in his lap, staring at nothing while tears leak over her pale cheeks. I just want to find Mattie so I can be there for Clara. So she can come back to me.
I want to hold her, wipe her tears, stroke my fingers through her hair, God, all of that. She might be out of that prison of a mansion, but she’s still locked away from me, and I hate it. I hate everything about how things went down.
I will never forgive myself for setting off the blanks that got her father shot and killed but were at least distracting enough for the shot to go wide, keeping my girl alive.
More than a year ago, I told her healing takes time. It does. But watching her in this frozen state is torture, one that I’m so grateful I get to see while wishing it away at the same time. The most alive she seems is when Fluffington sprawls across her torso and demands she pet him.
She’s not eating, not sleeping, not moving or smiling or laughing.
She’s a shell, and I can’t fill her up with what I have at my disposal.
My kisses can’t mend what’s broken, nor Jansen’s touch, Walker’s feasts, or Trips’ constant guard.
So I do what I can to save another girl, not mine, to put an end to a hellish chapter of our story.
Bryce needs to be dealt with once and for all.
But first, I need to find him.