Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Adeline
“Addie, please, the heat is making you angry. You need to calm down,” Eli says, his arms outstretched like he is trying to catch a wounded animal.
“Stay away from me,” I tell him, and I can feel myself cracking, the edges crumbling and breaking away as everything floods me, drowning me. Tears pour, and I can’t stop them as I start to hyperventilate, choking on my inability to control my emotions.
Eli steps closer, and I step back, my hands fisting and unfisting as I try to regather any sense of control. Then he moves too close, and I lash out, hitting him. Adrenaline hits me. My hands start smacking any part of him within reach.
“I fucking hate you! I hate you! You did this. You caused all of it, caused fucking everything,” I scream as I hit him.
It is like hitting a wall; no impact on him, but my hands and knuckles are throbbing to their own beat as they bruise from the repeated blows.
The pain is welcoming; anything to stop the raging storm in my head that is smashing through my defenses.
“Addie, calm down,” he says, grabbing me and crushing me against him to stop me from hitting him.
I go limp, dropping my weight to try to escape his clutches, but his grip is too strong as I try to breathe around my crushing anguish.
“You destroyed me! You all fucking destroyed me! You took everything,” I sob, thrashing, trying to break free of his grip.
“I know. I know, love,” he says, refusing to let go.
I keep thrashing before eventually growing tired. I don’t even care if people can hear or see. I don’t care anymore. I am done with everything and everyone. I just want it to end, to fucking end, so I won’t have to live with it anymore.
“I’m sorry, Addie. We never wanted it to be this way, never wanted to see you hurt because of us,” Eli says, kissing my hair as my body trembles with sobs.
Then I suddenly feel my legs go out from under me.
“I got you, Addie. You don’t have to suffer alone anymore,” he says, and I feel him start walking before I am placed in his car. I sit there numb.
I can’t even feel the seat beneath me, just cold and numb. He pulls my seatbelt on, clipping it in before shutting the door, walking to the other side, and climbing in. The engine roars to life as he starts the car. The car tears out of the parking lot and onto the road.
I can hear him talking to me, but his words may as well be gibberish for all the sense they make to me. I stare at my hands covered in Troy’s blood, panic hitting me.
I am going to jail. They will lock me up for what I did.
I start rubbing my hands on my pants, trying to rid them of his blood, my skin stained as I continue to rub them.
“Addie… stop, love,” Eli says, grabbing my hands in one of his.
“Did I kill him? Oh my god, I’m going to jail,” I say, panicking, remembering the caved-in parts of Troy’s face.
“Calm down. Cyrus will take care of it. He won’t let him die, okay?”
“But I hurt someone. They will lock me up for what I did,” I say, trying to pull my hands from his grip.
“You are not going to jail, Addie. We wouldn’t let that happen. And Cyrus will take care of the footage and their memories, so just calm down. We won’t let anything happen to you,” he says, squeezing my hands.
Goosebumps raise on my arms, my teeth chattering, and Eli lets my hands go before fiddling with the heat and turning it up.
I place my hands in front of one of the vents trying to warm up when I see Eli start removing his jacket while using his legs to steer.
He removes it and hands it to me, and I slip my arms in before pulling it closed; it smells like him, and I feel my body relax.
“Bit better?” he asks, and I nod before staring out the windshield.
“Are you taking me home?” I ask him.
“I will take you wherever you want to go.”
“I want to go home. I want to go back to my mother’s,” I tell him, and his jaw clenches before he nods.
“Can we swing by our place first to clean you up? Addie, your mother will panic if you go home covered in blood.”
“But you will take me home, right?” I ask, my heart rate skipping and thumping violently in my chest at the thought of being trapped with them.
“Yes. If that is what you want, I will take you home after you shower,” he says, looking over at me. “So, can I take you to our place?”
I nod, and he turns off toward the highway.
“What about my sister and niece?” I ask, worried about them.
“They won’t remember, I promise. Cyrus will meet us at home, and everything will be taken care of.”
The drive takes around twenty minutes before we pull off the highway and down the dirt road heading toward their place out of town.
Eli pulls into the driveway. The place looks the same, except the grass needs mowing.
Eli hops out of the car, and I turn to pull on the door handle and climb out of the car.
Eli waits for me before walking up the verandah stairs and opening the door.
The place is dark, all the curtains closed, letting in no light, but Eli navigates his way around, pulling me with him as he flicks on the lights.
We stop in the kitchen, and he grabs the AC remote off the counter before turning the heat up.
The vents in the roof push hot hair around the house.
“Come on. You need to shower,” he says, pulling me toward the bathroom in their bedroom.
He flicks the light on before looking under the sink for a towel, but there isn’t one. I stand there watching him when he turns the shower on, adjusting the taps before holding his hand under it, waiting for the water to heat up.
His white shirt has blood smeared on it from me hitting him.
His scent fills my nose as he leans around me, and I can feel the warmth seeping off his skin.
I fight the urge to touch him and lean in to smell his skin.
He steps back, wiping his hands on the towel on the sink basin before looking at me.
“Hop in. I will grab you a towel,” he says before leaving the room.
I take off his jacket, dropping it on the floor before kicking my heels off, the tiles cold under my feet, making me shiver even more.
My hair stands on end as goosebumps cover my skin, and my hands shake terribly as I undo the buttons on my blouse.
Eli walks in with a fluffy black towel. He watches me struggle with the tiny buttons before pushing my hands away and undoing them, his teeth clenched as he pulls my blouse off before reaching behind me and unclipping my bra.
I slide it off before trying to undo the button on my pants.
Eli undoes it before pulling down the zip and pulling them down along with my underwear.
I grab his shoulder, sparks rushing across my palm, easing the heat slightly with just one touch.
I step out of them, and he picks up my clothes before checking the water again and nodding toward the shower.
I hop in, wetting my hands to find the water hot, and I step under the stream.
Eli walks out, taking my clothes with him.
My entire body won’t stop shaking. Even with the water boiling hot, I still feel cold, then hot. No in-between, just freezing and boiling. I wash Troy’s blood from my hands. I scrub the loofah over them, trying to remove it.
After a while, all the blood is gone, and the shaking stops. My heart rate is slowing.
They will take care of it. Cyrus is dealing with it, I keep telling myself to make myself believe Eli’s words.
“I put your clothes in the wash. Bella, Taylor, and Maya are fine and at home,” Eli says, walking in and leaning against the sink basin, his white shirt gone, but I can still see blood on his chest where it seeps through his shirt.
I nod, then realize he doesn’t say anything about Troy.
“Troy?”
“Alive and memory wiped. Cyrus got rid of the footage from the foyer as well.”
“He will be fired tomorrow when he comes in for work, Addie. He won’t be there to harass your sister anymore or Bella.”
I hop out of the shower, and Eli hands me the black towel. I wrap myself in it before walking into the bedroom. Eli walks into the walk-in, grabs one of his shirts off the hanger, and passes it to me.
“I need to shower. Cyrus should be back soon,” he says before walking into the bathroom.
I dry myself before slipping the shirt on and wrapping my hair in the towel.
Walking into the kitchen, I turn the kettle on before rummaging around, trying to find some coffee.
The heat has died down considerably just being near them, and I dread going home because I know it will get worse with them away from me.
As overwhelming as the urge is to touch them, at least that is more bearable than the agony of them not being nearby.
Looking for the coffee, I find it on the top shelf.
Gripping the shelf and standing on the bottom one, I grab it down before grabbing the sugar, only to turn around to see Cyrus standing behind me, making me jump.
The coffee jar falls from my grip. Before it hits the ground, he grabs it, sitting it on the bench.
“Geez, you nearly gave me a heart attack, don’t sneak up on people,” I tell him as my heart rate settles.
He smiles before grabbing the sugar from my hand, turning around, and starting to make coffee.
“Eli’s in the shower,” I tell him nervously.
“I can hear that,” he says, tapping a finger to his ear. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” I tell him, and he raises an eyebrow at me and stirs the cup’s contents. He hands it to me.
“Are you hungry?” I shake my head while taking the coffee and sitting on the couch near the windows.
“Eli said you want to go home?” he asks, taking his jacket off and draping it over one of the stools.
I sip my coffee. “He promised to take me home,” I tell him, and Cyrus presses his lips in a line before nodding.
“I need to shower. We will drop you home afterward,” he says, walking into the bedroom. I place the coffee on the coffee table to let it cool down and rest my head on the back of the couch. The smell of Eli’s clothes is soothing as his scent envelopes me.