Chapter Thirteen #2
Once she was sure the wave of nausea had subsided, she pushed back and sat against the wall opposite the toilet.
Ellis moved with her. So they were both sitting there against the wall in the cramped bathroom.
Her breathing like she’d run a marathon, him gently pressing the washcloth to her forehead.
Like she was sick. Like he could make it better.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Against the wave of too many emotions to wade through. She reached up, took the washcloth from him, and tossed it into the tub with one hand, while she clutched his hand with the other.
“They pushed me off a balcony.” She opened her eyes to look at him.
She could see his throat work to swallow in the dim light coming from the other room. Then he inclined his head.
“I…remember. I remember waking up and knowing someone was in the house.” She could see it, in her mind’s eye.
No fuzziness. No confusion. She remembered it, second by second.
“I got the gun. I did what you always told me to do if there was an intruder. I got my phone. I got the gun. Went into the closet and locked it. I was asleep when they got in, so no alarms had gone off. They must have bypassed the security system.”
Ellis squeezed her hand. “Yeah. They had some high-tech former military guy on their staff. We figured he was the one who did it, but he never stood trial for anything.”
“They broke down the closet door, like they just…knew I was in there. Like I was what they were after. Two men. They were dressed in black, but I could see their faces. I was holding the gun, pointing it right at them.” Emotion at the memory, the helplessness, the terror, clogged in her throat.
But she had to get it out. “I couldn’t… It wasn’t that I didn’t want to shoot them.
I wanted to shoot all of them. I was just…
frozen. Then they grabbed me and pulled me out.
They ripped the gun away from me, and I finally…
unfroze. I kicked and I fought, but they just kept dragging me. ”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she was shaking, but she knew she had to get it out. Make it real, so she could move past it instead of letting it be the thing that kept her from remembering, that kept her separate from herself.
Ellis had told her she was safe back there, and she was. Because she wasn’t in that house. Because his arm was around her. He was here. He was hers.
“I think they heard your car come up. Or maybe they had lookouts who warned them.” She took a shaky breath to steady herself.
To see it. Because remembering it couldn’t hurt her.
It was only what had happened. “They weren’t going to take me to the balcony, but they wanted to see who was coming.
I guess…no one knew who it was at first. There was some confusion over if it was one of their own.
So they dragged me out to the balcony, and I saw a car.
You running out of it and then the gunshot went off and you jerked. Fell.”
It was the part of the dream she’d remembered when she’d remembered nothing else. Him shot. Bleeding. Her reaction to that.
“I thought you were dead. I thought we were both dead.” She pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, trying to stem this tide of tears that seemed never-ending. But it was too much to absorb all at once, even if her brain had finally accepted that Ellis was right.
She was safe.
Except they weren’t safe at all. It was coming back for them.
“Come on,” he said gruffly, getting to his feet. He helped her to hers, wrapped his arm around her, and led her back to her bedroom. He nudged her back into the bed, even pulled the covers up over her, like a parent tucking a child in.
“You need to rest. Relax,” he told her very gravely.
Panic started to beat again. He was going to leave her. It would be the dark again. Alone. Targeted.
She reached out to grip his hand. “Please, don’t leave me alone. I… Please.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly. “I’ll just sit right here.”
She couldn’t quite make his face out in the dark, but it wasn’t the dark that scared her. It wasn’t this place. She wasn’t fully sure what it was.
She just knew she needed him. And that he was going to sit on the floor or something stupid when… She tugged on his arm. “Please, Ellis.”
On a sigh, she felt the mattress dip. He sat there next to her, her hand still clutching his. She was still shaking a little, and that must have been what broke down that last wall. He lay fully down next to her.
Gingerly, carefully, he drew her into his arms. It felt like she could take a full breath for the first time.
Safe.
She was safe. And wrung out. Exhausted. There were so many things to talk about, to remember, but with the rhythmic, calming sensation of his hand moving up and down her back, she fell asleep.
ELLIS WOKE UP in his bed in Chicago, his wife in his arms, thinking he was going to be late for work if he didn’t force himself to leave this perfect moment. He pressed his nose into her hair, inhaled deeply, and cursed himself for taking this last job.
What was he thinking?
That if you stay, you’re going to have to face the realities of being a father.
And then he opened his eyes. The room was bright with sunlight. The moment gone, but the bolt of fear lodged in his brain.
A dream? A memory? He couldn’t quite make sense of it. He hadn’t been afraid of being a damn father and…
He wasn’t alone in this bed, in the here and now. Not Chicago. Wyoming.
But his wife. Brown eyes met his. Searching for something.
She’d remembered last night. The trauma that had happened to her.
Because of him.
But it meant…if she could remember the horrible things, that there was some hope…
Damn it, hadn’t he learned that hope didn’t do a damn thing?
Maybe she’d remembered that night, but it didn’t mean she remembered everything. It didn’t mean she understood. It didn’t mean there was some magical way to go back to before.
Too much had happened.
She would never know how hard it was for him to sit up, to get up and out of that bed with her in it. A vision of something he’d once had and lost. Because of his own damn choices.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, not able to look at her.
She took a moment, like she was considering it. “A bit like I got hit by a truck. But… I’m glad I went back to sleep. I needed that. I needed…rest.”
“Good. You’re probably starving. I’ll make some breakfast.”
“Ellis.”
He wanted to walk out the door. Ignore whatever she wanted to say, but how could he? She deserved better. So he turned to face her.
She was sitting up, resting her chin on her curled-up knees.
“I don’t know that I remember everything, but when I try to think back to certain things, they’re there,” she told him earnestly, though she didn’t look right at him either, more at the wall next to him.
“My mom’s name is Nora Braxton. My sister’s name is Erica. You and I got married on June 14.”
She moved her gaze to his. Tears swam in her eyes.
“And you were right. We didn’t have a fight about you being afraid to be a father.
” She laughed, but it was a bitter sound.
“It was…” She gestured at her head. “I used to rehearse the fights I wanted to have with you in my head. And then I was never brave enough to actually have them, but apparently the memory was just…that. Thinking about it. Obsessing about it. And never telling you.”
He hadn’t known that, but it clicked certain things into a new understanding.
Because it had always felt like there’d been these…
things left unsaid between them. They’d both retreat to their corners.
He’d throw himself into work, and she’d apparently rehearse fights she hadn’t ever actually started.
And she remembered. More than he expected, if she knew names and dates. He honestly didn’t even know what to say to that. He hadn’t expected this, and maybe if things were different, he’d have time to reel.
But there was a threat against her, so he needed to deal with this new reality rationally. With his head, not his heart.
“Do you want to talk to Dr. Leigh? I can set up an appointment—”
“No, Ellis,” she replied, looking very disapprovingly at him. “I want to talk to you.”
His chest tightened, hard and painful. He couldn’t quite breathe through it. So he groped around for something that might ease it. “All right. But I should check in with Zach to see what the PI has about the assistant and—”
“Didn’t you learn anything from this?” she demanded. “After everything that’s happened, you’re still going to use work to keep me at arm’s length?”
“Kirsten, this isn’t work.”
“It is. Or if it’s not, you’re using it like work. An excuse not to deal with me.”
Frustration that she wasn’t wrong bubbled through him, because there was a threat, even if he wasn’t ready to deal with her too. “It’s not an excuse to want to do everything in my power to keep you safe, to stop this threat.” He believed that.
Or had, but she was making him unsure, which made him want to double down.
She tossed the covers off of her and moved off the bed in jerky, frustrated moves. She crossed the room to him, and it took every last FBI skill he’d trained for to maintain his ground, not back away.
“Do you know that I was so afraid to lose you, I wouldn’t fight with you?” she demanded.
He didn’t have an answer for that.
“But I lost you in a different way,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
“You never lost me. I was right here,” he managed to rasp.
“You were, but you weren’t. Couldn’t be.
I understand that. I don’t know that I agree with everything that’s happened, but I understand…
I don’t think I could remember until I felt safe, and maybe that could have happened sooner if we’d spent more time together, but maybe it wouldn’t.
I don’t know. I can’t go back. And I don’t want to waste time trying to…
go through what I remember and what I don’t. ”