Chapter Fifty-Five
Parker
Eliot’s headlights stay in my rearview mirror the whole way back to my apartment.
I can’t stop thinking about his hands. About watching him spell out words so Grace would feel comfortable.
You matter to me.
The tears start at a stoplight, silently rolling down my cheeks. Eliot learned ASL in bits and pieces in the middle of the night. He didn’t talk about it. Didn’t go up to Grace in the middle of the party and announce that he was learning so everyone could hear. He just…did it.
I swipe at my face, annoyed when the tears keep coming. This is ridiculous. I don’t cry. Not like this. Not because a man learned how to sign a few words.
Eliot’s been showing me the truth our entire relationship. We’re not just “dating.” This isn’t a casual fling. This is so much more.
“You matter to me.”
Not just when I’m strong or useful or in control. But when I’m tired or scared or feel like I’m carrying the weight of the whole world on my shoulders.
I want the life taking shape between us. The one where he buys a tray because he wants to bring me breakfast in bed. Where my morning drive is half an hour longer because I know he prefers hemp milk in his coffee.
But that’s not all I want.
I want to watch This Old House while he knits and I do my physical therapy exercises. I want to come home to a place that’s ours, with his boots by the door and my mom’s cookbooks on the shelf. I want to walk through the farmer’s market holding his hand.
I want the boring Tuesday nights. The bad mornings when one or both of us are in pain.
I want to see him laugh when Nate is being…
Nate. I want to hear more about Zack, even when the stories hurt.
I want to know what he was like before I knew him—and learn about the parts of his life that have nothing to do with me.
I want him in my life when there’s no case bringing us together.
To wake up beside him because it’s Wednesday, not because one of us has nowhere else to be.
To find out if my rolling the toothpaste tube drives him up a wall, or if he leaves his socks on the bathroom floor.
I want all the highs and lows of a life together, and the perfectly ordinary days in between.
Somewhere between that first coffee and tonight, I’ve fallen in love with him. And that terrifies me.
I force a slow breath. In. Out. Again. And again. The tears stop, damp tracks cooling on my cheeks. Pulling into my parking space, I loosen my grip on the steering wheel and stare at my hands.
Eliot trusted me with the worst day of his life.
I can trust him with the worst day of mine.
He meets me at the bottom of the stairs, takes my hand in his, and brings it to his lips. A sound catches in my throat. His name, cut off by a rush of emotion so strong, it almost knocks me flat.
“Parker? What’s—”
“Inside?” The word scrapes out, thin and pleading. Eliot nods, tightens his grip, and we take the stairs together.
The silence is too much, but I don’t know how to break it. Not when I unlock the door. Not once we’re inside.
He leaves his keys next to mine on the counter. Like they belong there.
Because they do.
I pull out two glasses, then dig in the cabinet over the fridge for the bottle of bourbon I’ve only opened twice since I moved to Austin. Eliot watches me pour. Watches the way my hands shake…enough a splash of the amber liquid hits the counter.
“Parker.”
“I need to do this.”
He follows me to the couch, and sinks down close enough for me to feel his warmth, but not close enough to touch.
The space between us is suddenly unbearable.
“Hold me,” I manage.
In a heartbeat, his arm wraps around my shoulders. I lean into his strength. A single tear slips down my cheek. I take a healthy swig of bourbon, the burn as it goes down giving me something to focus on besides what I’m about to do. Another sip, and I set the glass on the coffee table next to his.
“You’ve never asked…about my hands.”
Eliot shakes his head. “Knew you’d tell me when you were ready.”
I flex my fingers on his thigh, the light catching the bits of shiny skin left behind by the cult’s pyre, then flip my hand over so he can see the scars crisscrossing my palm.
“How much of Grace’s story do you know?”
“I follow the news.” His thumb strokes back and forth over my shoulder. The rhythm’s reassuring. I rest my palm over his heart to track the steady beat. “Saw some of her interview with Emi a few months ago.”
“The second time she was taken, right after her surgery, they took me too.”
He stills, tightening his hold. “I…didn’t know.”
“No one does. We kept it quiet. Because of what they did. How they did it.”
Eliot reaches for his glass and downs half of it in a single swallow.
“The leader…he wasn’t one of those charismatic charmer types. He kept his people in line by isolating them, intimidating them, and…if that didn’t work…he figured out a way to break them.”
I take a deep breath, surprised when I don’t smell the smoke or the sickly sweet stench of oleander blooms. There’s just Eliot. Cloves and vanilla with a bit of hickory from the barbecue.
“He had this shed. Wasn’t much bigger than a closet.
Thick walls covered in layers of heavy white fabric.
Lights that never turned off. He called it the Box.
” A single shudder runs down my spine. I ground myself with Eliot’s heartbeat.
“I was mad as hell when his men dragged us out of that helicopter. Ready to fight every damn one of them for as long as it took. But Prophet—that’s what he made everyone call him—knew I wouldn’t go down easy. ”
The walls of my apartment start to blur as the memories try to drag me back to the compound. I focus on the way Eliot’s thumb moves in a slow, steady arc across my skin to keep me where I know I’m safe.
“He needed Grace for his ceremony. He thought killing her would make him immortal. Fuckin’ loon. But me…” My fingers curl against Eliot’s shirt. “He said I’d be his fifth wife. Told me I wasn’t Parker anymore. Said a week in the Box and I’d be his forever.
“They stripped me of everything. My clothes. My boots. My name. Put me in a pink dress and locked me in that hellhole.
“I’ve faced down gang members from the wrong end of AK-47s.
Been shot at half a dozen times. Ended two lives when there was no other choice.
I knew I wouldn’t break. I’d find a way out.
And if the worst happened… If AJ and Connor and Nate and Jasper couldn’t get to us…
When Prophet let me out of there, I’d break his goddamn neck.
“But then the sound started.”
Eliot covers my hand with his. The warmth settles me enough to keep going.
“It was everywhere. In my head. In my bones. This constant vibration at the right frequency ripping me apart. I couldn’t think. I tried. So many times. ‘I’m Parker Elmore. I’m still me.’”
Somewhere far away, I know Eliot’s still with me. But I can barely feel him now.
“Time didn’t mean a thing in the Box. The lights never dimmed. It was cold, I remember that. Nothing else. Just the sound. And the moment Parker slipped away.”
A tear reaches my jaw. I feel the weight of it. The wobble. How it tries to hold on against gravity. And when it loses, the sensation is enough to bring me back.
“Grace…God, she was so fucking brave. Couldn’t talk, but managed to convince Prophet’s father to help both of us. He found this rusty metal bar and wedged it between two of the floorboards.
“At first, I thought I was imagining the damn thing. It was so bright, I could barely see. Took me the better part of a day to hack at the fabric and the boards until I had a hole big enough to squeeze through.
“Prophet had already started his batshit ceremony. Poisoned Grace. Tied her down. He was about to stab her…when the guys showed up. Along with a Mexican cartel they’d convinced to help them.”
I shake my head, still amazed at what they were able to pull off.
“Grace got herself loose, but Prophet wasn’t about to let the chaos stop him. He grabbed her, had a knife at her throat. I didn’t think. Tore a strip from that godawful dress, wound it around one end of the bar, and shoved it into the flames around the altar. Once it caught, I set Prophet on fire.”
Eliot’s entire body tenses. Shit. Did I send him back to the worst day of his life? Then his thumb moves against my shoulder. His breathing steadies.
Finish it.
“He still didn’t go down. So I swung the bar at his head and took out his eye. AJ shot him. The rest…that was all on the news.”
Eliot lifts my hand from his chest, and brings my fingers to his lips. The gentle kiss is almost too much to bear.
“I’m the one people go to in an emergency, Eliot,” I whisper.
“I hold it together. Always. But I couldn’t back there.
” The tears come faster now. “Grace spent three years waiting for Prophet to kill her. He put her in that box twice. For days. And she survived. Even after she lost her memory, she was still Grace. And I broke in hours.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, as if somehow, that will make my next words easier.
“I should have been able to hold on. To ignore the noise, the light, the cold… I thought I was strong. But when it mattered most, I didn’t just break. I gave up.”
“Parker…” His voice is little more than a whisper. Strong in a way that doesn’t need to be loud.
“No. Don’t. I need you to understand… I can’t stop wondering if the next time I’m afraid, the next time I’m in a situation I can’t control, I’ll lose myself again. And if that happens…I don’t know that I’ll ever find my way back.”
Eliot doesn’t tell me I’m wrong. That I won’t break. That I survived. He doesn’t say anything at all for a while. Just holds me, our linked hands still resting over his heart.
“I see you, Parker. I see all of you. And I’m not going anywhere.”
A single sob breaks free. There should be more. But I’m so tired, I can’t manage another.
“Can we…” I nod toward the bedroom. “Will you just hold me?”
He presses a kiss to my forehead, lets his lips linger there. “Always.”
I change into the AFD t-shirt I’m never giving back, while he strips down to his briefs.
Under the blankets, I settle against his bare chest, his arm around my waist, and our hands intertwined.
My eyes drift closed. I gave him my worst fear. He didn’t try to take it away. He stayed with me so I didn’t have to carry it alone.