19. Nell
Another day in paradise. Or, as I like to call it; the Boomerang Chronicles, volume 57.
Today’s highlights?
Lost the cat. Twice. Once curled up inside the washing machine pretending he’s laundry, and once halfway out a second-storey window like he’s auditioning for Mission: Impossible—Feline Protocol.
Burned four slices of toast in a row. FOUR. I’m starting to think the toaster’s in on it.
Tried to cook some sausages in the oven and set off the fire alarm so aggressively I’m convinced the neighbours think I moonlight as an arsonist.
I’m now descending from my makeshift tower of chairs after swatting at the screeching smoke detector with a dish towel like it’s a wasp from hell. Sweat is dripping down my spine. The kitchen looks like a crime scene. The toaster is glaring at me. Boomerang’s judging me from atop the fridge.
Honestly? I don’t think I’m cut out for a house this big. Too many rooms. Too many hiding spots. Too many ways for one small animal and one poorly timed slice of bread to dismantle my entire morning.
“What on earth is going on in here?”
Cameron rounds the corner—still in sweatpants from his morning run, but stripped to the waist.
And just like that, my brain short-circuits.
His chest is carved in ridges that look sculpted, not grown. Sweat still glistens at the base of his neck, trailing down between muscles I didn’t know could look that defined outside of Photoshop. And that vein—that vein—cuts down his hip into the kind of V that makes rational thought a luxury I no longer possess.
Stalker boy knows how to make an entrance.
Meanwhile, I look like I’ve been chewed up and spat out by a laundry basket—baggy T-shirt, faded leggings, hair scraped into a bun that’s more nest than style. No socks. No dignity.
He’s all muscle and menace.
I’m a gremlin with toast crumbs on her shirt.
“I was trying to make breakfast. It’s not my fault your oven’s temperature control is possessed.”
He raises a brow, eyeing the charred sausages with something between horror and amusement.
“We’re calling that breakfast?”
“I’d like to blame the hardware,”
I say, waving vaguely at the offending appliance. But we both know it’s user error. I wasn’t exactly raised in the Church of Oven Settings.
“Christ. I genuinely have no idea how you’ve survived this long.”
Rude.
Who said survival requires an oven anyway? I’ve been living a very happy life on ready meals and grapes, thank you very much.
“Fine. Next time, I won’t bother trying to do something nice.”
“Yes. Please don’t.”
My reverse psychology lands like a brick. He wipes sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm and glances up at the precarious tower of chairs I used to swat the fire alarm. The look he gives me is… pitying. Like I’m a wounded animal that’s somehow learned to use a microwave. Barely.
“What exactly were you trying to do?”
“I am making breakfast,”
I insist, lifting my chin.
“Go sit down. I’ve got this handled.”
He ignores me entirely. He’s already wiping down the counters like I’ve personally offended his sense of hygiene, rearranging the fridge like he’s the Gordon Ramsay of paranoia.
“I’d rather not get food poisoning before lunch, thanks. Go perch somewhere safe. I’ll let you know when it’s edible.”
“No, I’ve got this. I already told you.”
I’m not backing down. He needs to loosen the death grip on his control complex before he gives himself an aneurysm. The man’s coiled so tight he creaks when he breathes.
We wrestle—yes, wrestle—over the stupid carton of milk, both of us refusing to yield. Silent. Stubborn. Locked in what I can only describe as a dairy-based standoff.
I am not a child. I am perfectly capable of making my own damn breakfast.
He’s just insufferably controlling.
And then—of course—it happens. The carton jerks sideways, slips from our hands, hits the floor with a schlup, and erupts like a lactose landmine.
Milk goes everywhere.
So do I.
My feet slide out from under me and I crash to the tiles in a spectacular mess, smacking my head on the way down and landing in an undignified puddle of spilt semi-skimmed milk and existential regret.
I blink up at him, dazed, drenched and furious.
He stares down at me, jaw tight, nostrils flaring, the picture of someone trying to choose between laughter and homicide.
And honestly? This is his fault. If he’d just let me do one basic, autonomous thing in peace, the milk would still be in the fridge and my dignity would still be intact.
He steps carefully around the puddle and offers me a hand, like this is just another Tuesday.
“Happy?”
“Me?”
The word snaps out of me like a whip crack. Rage sparks low in my chest like an erupting volcano.
“You’ve got to be kidding. This is your fault. If you weren’t such a goddamn control freak, I wouldn’t be sitting here with a possible concussion.”
I rub the back of my head, flinching when I reach the sore spot. It’s already tender. Great. I was just getting over the bruise from Adam, and now this.
His mouth twitches.
“Not nice, is it? The headache, I mean?”
Oh, he did not just—
I smack his hand away as he reaches for me, staggering a little as I push to my feet, still slick with milk and irritation. The floor’s a hazard, my feet are soaked, and I am one snide comment away from setting this whole kitchen on fire just out of spite.
“Don’t,”
I warn, voice tight.
He raises both hands in mock surrender, but I don’t wait for more. I turn on my heel and stomp toward the bathroom, dignity leaking behind me in semi-skimmed footprints.
Boomerang doesn’t even follow—too busy lapping up the spill like this is his breakfast offering.
Traitor.
“Stopped sulking yet?”
Cameron’s voice cuts through the room like a blade, smooth and smug. It rattles straight down my spine.
No, I have not. I might be milk-free and shower-fresh, but the emotional whiplash? Still very much present. So instead of acting my age, I turn away from him, sulking.
“We need to go through the plan—me, you, Talia,”
he says, like he’s ticking boxes.
“So eat something, and meet us in the office in twenty.”
I don’t respond. Just keep my eyes glued to the window, tracking birds flitting through the trees like they’ve never once been humiliated in a kitchen. Must be nice.
Like hell I’m eating anything he cooked. He thinks he can throw a few sausages on a plate and I’ll forget the milk-slick floor, the cracked skull, the Olympic-level condescension? Absolutely not.
But to get to the office, I have to pass the kitchen. And because the universe hates me, I do glance.
Perfectly cooked sausages. Fluffy and golden scrambled eggs. Toast at that ideal midpoint between crisp and soft. The plate is still warm. The smell? Criminal.
My stomach lets out a low, traitorous growl.
I ignore it. Keep walking. Chin high. Morals intact. Hunger be damned.
Let the man enjoy his smug culinary masterpiece. I’ll be in the office, starving—but victorious.
They’re already in the room, locked in a tense discussion—voices low and clipped. But the second I step through the door, the energy shifts and both of them fall silent.
Cameron leans back like he hadn’t just been mid-argument, but it’s Talia who holds my attention.
She’s not what I expected.
I’d pictured someone harder, more brute-force than finesse. But she’s beautiful in a way that feels engineered for intimidation. Every inch of her looks like a warning.
Her eyes—hazel, but edged with something flinty—land on mine and hold. Not just looking at me, but through me. Like she’s sifting through layers I didn’t give permission to expose.
Before I can decode it, she lifts a hand to tuck a pale strand of hair behind her ear, revealing a shadowed undercut. A contrast to the polished blonde, like her whole aesthetic is built on contradiction.
I suddenly feel like I showed up to a chess match with a deck of Uno cards.
“You ate fast,”
he mutters, eyeing me like I’ve committed a federal offence.
“I’m not hungry anymore,”
I say, shrugging with the kind of apathy I hope masks the growl in my stomach. Timing, traitor. Pick better timing.
He rolls his eyes and turns back to his laptop, unimpressed with my stand-off. Talia, without missing a beat, slides her chair to the side and gestures wordlessly for me to sit.
I drag one over. It screeches across the tile like I’m summoning demons instead of joining a briefing.
Not my most graceful entrance—but he doesn’t even flinch. Just clicks something on the screen like I’m white noise at this point.
Honestly? Fair.
“So, we’ve got confirmation. Your name’s on the list.”
Cameron’s voice is level—too level—and just like that, it’s real. The threat. The danger. All of it snapping into focus like a lens finally locking on.
I swallow hard, my mind replaying those brutal surveillance clips he showed me. I definitely don’t want to end up in any of those.
He slides a sheet of paper across the desk.
“Here’s your routine. Hour by hour. Stick to it.”
A perfectly structured schedule. Detailed to the minute. Choreographed like a performance.
Very him; controlled to a fault.
I stare at it.
“And what happens when you know they’re coming? When they actually make a move?”
Talia clears her throat, voice precise and clipped—like she’s rehearsed this part.
“The team, myself included, will be in position. Cam will shadow your movements. The second they strike, we neutralise. It’ll be fast. You won’t even need to see it happen.”
Her hazel eyes flick to mine completely steady.
“But you have to follow this schedule. No improvising. That’s how we keep you alive.”
I nod, slow and silent.
“Then we find Darcy,”
I say—more to steady myself than anything else. I need to believe there’s still a thread to follow. Still a chance.
Cameron’s gaze doesn’t waver.
“If we get this right—if we get you clear—then yes. I’ll do everything I can to track her. But I won’t lie to you. These networks are fast. That’s how they stay hidden.”
He leans forward, voice low like it’s been rake over coals.
“The moment a girl is taken, she’s moved. From one location to the next, over and over. No patterns. No trace normally. That’s why this has to go exactly to plan. We only get one shot at this.”
“Okay, it sounds like a plan. Count me in.”
I try to focus.
Their conversation buzzes around me—strategy, timing, extraction routes—half of it sailing straight over my head. Acronyms and shorthand and contingency codes that mean nothing to someone who still burns toast on a good day.
But my phone won’t stop vibrating. A relentless, pulsing buzz in my pocket, over and over again.
I grit my teeth, trying to stay locked in, nod like I understand the stakes, the plan, the invisible chessboard they’re building.
Still—it buzzes again.
And again.
On the fourth cycle, I give in. Yanking the phone from my pocket with a sharp sigh, already bracing for whatever’s waiting on the screen.
I try to school my face into neutrality, but the second I see it… my stomach dips.
Hard. It’s Adam, again.
I see you got yourself a new boyfriend. Slut.
He’s still going?
Of course he is. Why would I ever believe he’d stop? He’s just like my uncle—different brand of poison, same malicious rot beneath the skin.
And now I’ve dragged that filth—clinging to me like something I stepped in—straight into Cam’s world. As if Manticore wasn’t enough of a nightmare, let’s add my jealous, possessive ex to the mix for a bit of extra chaos.
Perfect.
Cam hasn’t said a word. But he’s seen the bruises. Took one look and didn’t flinch. Not that we were exactly in the position for a heart-to-heart at the time… not with him tied to a chair and all.
Still. He knows.
I feel the blood drain from my face, cold settling in behind my ribs. I don’t say anything. Don’t trust myself to.
Because while they talk strategy and threats and contingencies, all I can think about is Adam.
And all the very permanent ways I could make him disappear.