Chapter Nineteen
Rowan
Everything is back to normal. Luca no longer looks at me like I’ll break from his touch. Weeks is back, but he mentions nothing about what happened while he was gone or why he left.
I never told Luca about the night Roxy ran off. It hasn’t happened since, so I don’t want to alert him for no reason.
Luca heads out tomorrow for a job, and that’s my cue to watch David again. I haven’t come up with an excuse to tell Weeks why I’ll be leaving tomorrow, but I need to put some feelers out while they're both home.
Since the night with Dr. Maggie, my need to confront David and set everything right has become a fire in my belly. It’s all I think about. I dream of it. It’s consuming me.
I’ve been able to abate my pain with pain medicine, something stronger than Tylenol. And the relief is something I didn’t think I’d ever have. My body feels like mine once again, like mine before that night.
My blood tests came back fine, which is a relief.
I didn’t mention to Luca that the chance of getting pregnant with the scar tissue could be hard, but not impossible.
That’s something for down the road, and I don’t even know if I want children.
I’m scared to bring something so innocent into this fucked up world.
I don’t want to ruin something so pure, and with the way my life has gone, I’m scared I will.
David has fucked with my mind when it comes to that.
Maybe in a few years, it’ll be something I can overcome, but right now, I can’t.
I’m kind of relieved that it’ll be hard for me to get pregnant, something I don’t have to worry about now.
On top of giving me pain medicine, I’m now on birth control pills as well.
I take them religiously. I love Luca and the way we become one when we make love, so a condom isn’t something I want to introduce into our sex life.
I smile as I knock on the wooden table in front of me, trying to not jinx myself with a baby.
Leaning my head back on the sofa, I stare at the vaulted ceiling as the fan spins. My eyes try to track one certain blade as it makes its full circle, lost in thought of Luca, David, and my plan for tomorrow.
“Baby!”
I lift my head, seeing Luca stand at the threshold of the living room, perplexed, arms crossed
“Yeah?”
“I was calling your name for a good minute. Where were you?” he asks as he steps down, striding toward me. I hear the back door opening, knowing its Weeks coming in. It’s go time.
I put on an exasperated face. “Just thinking about everything I need to get done.”
Luca cocks his eyebrows at me as he sits down next to me, the cushion indenting under his weight, pivoting me more toward him.
Straightening myself up, I say, “I need to go into the gym tomorrow, take inventory, and make sure billing is all up to date. And I need a haircut.” I wrap a strand of hair around my finger, looking at the nonexistent dead ends.
Luca opens his mouth, but Weeks interrupts him before he speaks. “I need to go into town, too. I have some stuff at the gym I need to get squared away. We can ride together.”
I glower at him but immediately swipe my face, plastering on a fake smile, this asshole. “Sounds good. However, I will not finish for a while.
Sinking into the chair crossways from us, he says, “Shit, that’s no worries. I’m sure I can keep myself busy.”
I turn toward Luca, and I catch him before he loses the smile on his lips. These fuckers are in cahoots.
Standing, I say, “Well, now that’s cleared up.
I’ll be driving us.” I have to make sure I have a vehicle.
My mind races with how I’m going to make this work.
The time it’ll take to get there and to get back.
He’s still a three-hour drive from the gym, but I have to make this look like I needed to go to Hard Knocks. Fuck, why did I even say that?
Needing to distance myself from Luca and Weeks’ stare, I busy my hands with pouring a glass of wine, giving them my back while I stand in the kitchen. I don’t have a tell, but I know Luca can read me like a book.
With my glass in hand, I head out to the back porch, breathing in the fresh, crisp air.
Out here, you feel like you're in a totally different world. There is no light pollution, no sounds of vehicles. Only the animals and insects.
We have lights strung up around the back porch that give off just enough light.
But if you try to look out farther, you’re looking into pure darkness.
I try not to think about that, or I’ll freak myself out.
With a pull, I wrap the throw that stays out here around my shoulders.
I push the button on the remote to start the fire pit.
I smell the propane before I hear it. Jumping up, I run to the pit; the smell is overwhelming.
Pushing the off button, it doesn’t work.
Panic, pure panic, runs through me as I’ve never smelled it this bad before.
“Luca!” I call his name out, hoping he’ll hear me inside. Opening my mouth to scream again, the fire ignited, throwing a gigantic ball of fire into the air and knocking me backward onto my ass.
In seconds, I hear the back door slamming against the wall as Luca runs toward me, Weeks on his heels.
“What the fuck happened?” he screams while skidding toward me, his eyes on me, but his attention on our surroundings.
“I’m not sure. I turned on the fire pit; it smelled so bad. And then the fire came on and this.” I motion to myself.
I watch Weeks as he looks down into the pit. It’s not huge, but big enough for what we needed.
Luca bends down, helping me onto my feet, his eyes assessing me. They roam my body. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, but my back hurts. And at that moment, I get the flashback of me falling onto the altar, hitting the same spot that is now screaming at me. I try to straighten my back, but the pain shoots up my spine.
Needing to sit, I let them figure out what the hell just happened as I easily lower myself onto the chair.
I hear them talking, but can’t make out what they’re saying. Weeks points to something while Luca uses his phone light to see. They walk toward me. “Go check the cameras,” I hear Luca whisper to Weeks before he disappears back into the house.
“Cameras?” I question Luca as he sits in the opposite chair from me.
“That,” he says while pointing to the fire pit, “shouldn’t have malfunctioned.” He has worry etched on his face.
I sit up straighter, ignoring the pain. “What do you mean? We’re all the way out here, Luca.”
“That’s my worry.”
And that’s the moment chills consume me. “Elaborate.”
Luca’s hands automatically find his hair, brushing it back, even though it constantly stays like that.
“A while back, when you and I were driving up to the house, I swore I saw someone. And I’ve just been getting this feeling. I added more trail cams, but nothing has shown up. So, I’m not sure what it was or if it was just my mind fucking with me.”
I look away from him, wanting to tell him about the night Roxy ran out and the noise I heard, but I know this place will become like Fort Knox, and I can’t have that.
I need the space and freedom to do what I need to do.
And mentioning anything to Luca will take that away. Hell, Weeks is already here.
“We just need to stay vigilant, then.” I decide not to mention anything to him.
Luca rests his elbows on his knees, looking into the darkness. “Maybe we need floodlights back there?” he says but mostly to himself, not looking for me to answer him.
The back door groans open before Weeks and Roxy both trot their way toward us.
“I looked, but there wasn’t anything on the camera, nothing for the last two days.”
Our cameras record over themselves every few days, reusing the data to keep recording.
“Okay,” Luca says absentmindedly. His thoughts are still on what he needs to do to keep us safe.
I watch Weeks pitter around with the firepit, popping the back off it, still trying to figure out how it happened.
In seconds he has the propane tank out and the hose disconnected, examining them, all while Roxy sniffs the ground like she’s hunting for something.
My interest peaks as I walk to her. “What are you smelling?” I ask her as if she was going to respond to me. She follows the scent into the bushes and stops, growling.
Apprehensively, I bend down, trying to get a sight of whatever she smells, but I see nothing.
“Roxy, you’re freaking me out,” I whisper to her.
I can hear Luca now speaking with Weeks, but all my attention is on this bush.
Blindly, I stick my hand in, feeling around when I jerk it back. My armpits become wet, even in the chilly night air, as I reach back in, clasping onto something. Thin and fabric like.
My eyebrows draw up as I clasp the object, pulling it out of the bush, and that’s when my heart drops.
The lights barely give me any light where I am, but just enough to make out what is in my hand.
I immediately drop it to the ground, confused, I want to call for Luca, but close my mouth as I lift the black leather glove, looking it over. It’s covered in dirt.
“What the fuck?” I whisper to Roxy.
They’re back. But who? They're gone. Dead and burned.
Images of that night play like a movie… A horror movie in my mind.
Stop it, I reprimand myself. It could have been something Roxy found and brought back here. Not everything points back to them. Not everything revolves around them, Rowan. It’s just a glove.
“Rowan?” Luca calls from the back porch.
Hurriedly, I push the glove back into the bush, forcing myself to stand and rearranging my face. This is the last thing Luca needs to worry about. And what the fuck is worrying going to do? And worry about what? A random glove.