CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX #3
Something else occurs to me then. Something monumental that simply bursts to the surface, and I realize I’ve been lying to myself.
These past few days I thought I was trying to seize the moment.
Hoard memories, collect them like never before.
Maybe even show him what his life could be like if he simply stopped living in the past. That all his fantasies could come true.
But I was living my fantasy too. I was living my dream.
The dream I never dared to weave. Living with him, loving him, building a life with him.
Working side by side. Hoping, praying, wishing that I would get to have this. That I would get to have his love.
That my father didn’t ruin this for me too.
I thought I’d gotten brave when I started going on rides with Radisson, when I kissed him before the storm.
But I hadn’t been brave until this moment.
Until I accepted that I want more. I don’t just want to disappear from his life.
I don’t want this to end. I want to be with him.
I want to find a way to build something between us, despite blood, fire, and tragedy.
“No,” he says, breaking into my thoughts.
“What?”
His body has become larger somehow, more unforgiving than before, than it ever was. The scar on his face stands taut and his jaw is so firmly set that when he speaks, his lips barely move. “Don’t need your help. Don’t want it. That’s all we’re gonna say about that.”
With that he picks up a discarded shirt and starts striding over to the barn door. It takes me a few seconds to realize he intends to leave. He intends to simply go away. He’s leaving. After I poured my heart out to him, he’s just… leaving.
“Radisson,” I call out. “Stop.”
He doesn’t.
“Radisson, come back here. You can’t just leave. Don’t you have anything to say to what I just told you? I love—”
He stops at the door, his hand splayed wide on the wood as he cuts me off without turning around, “Just like your help, I don’t need your love.
Don’t want it. Thought that was understood.
” He turns his face to the side, his profile so sharp that my heart feels the bleeding cut.
“Love’s for children. For teenage girls who love the color blue and don’t know when to shut up.
Who care about dyin’ flowers and makin’ pancakes for picnics.
Love’s for girls who don’t know how to kiss and then think they’re in love with the first man who teaches ’em how. ”
It’s been three hours and twenty-one minutes since he left me in the barn after I told him I loved him.
I don’t know how I expected him to respond to my confession, but I didn’t expect him to simply leave.
And if I let myself think about it in depth, I’m sure I’ll feel my heart shattering into a million pieces as little shards of it run through my veins, poking me like needles all over my body.
So I’m not going to. Not yet. For now, my heartbreak will be a slow, silent, quiet death.
Because I gave them a certain time to come get me, and if I don’t hurry, I’ll be late to my own kidnapping.
So the thing is, in his hurry to break my heart, the love of my life left his phone in the barn.
And since I know what his password is—his mom’s birthday; he told me during one of our many chats where I poked and prodded him with questions—I opened it and went through his messages.
It only made me even more determined to do this.
Because not only were there messages from Arsen and Brecken about not being able to crack this thing yet; there were threatening texts from the unknown number, asking Radisson to hurry.
So I did what I had to do. I typed out a reply that Radisson hadn’t sent yet. Gave him a time and place to come get “the cargo.” And bring what he’s owed.
Of course, there was a risk that Radisson would come back before any of this could go down. But I knew he’d stay away tonight. Something told me he wouldn’t want to deal with me and my teenage love tonight.
Focus, Peyton. You’re about to be either extremely brave or extremely stupid.
It’s dark out, and the woods are too thick to let much of the moonlight pass.
But I’m almost at the edge of the path we took to get to the ranch.
I’m trying to get to a specific spot where he told me he’d installed cameras.
When I see a glinting light up on a tree, I know I’ve reached the right place. It’s the camera.
Taking a deep breath, I look into it and try to tell him with my eyes that I’m doing this, regardless of his wishes.
And if he thinks he can scare me into sitting idle when I can help him get his sister back, then he doesn’t know me very well.
He also doesn’t know me very well if he thinks I’m going to stop loving him after how he broke my heart.
Maybe that’s why I don’t see them coming.
Two men in black wearing ski masks. They grab me from behind and before I can scream, one of them covers my mouth with his suffocating hand.
Panic rears its head and not the good kind.
My fight-or-flight response goes into effect and I start struggling.
Which is quite possibly the best thing I could’ve done because I get the mask off of one of the men and I do think the camera captured his face.
But also the worst because in my struggle, the phone I was carrying in my pocket so Radisson could track my location drops to the ground.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide it for long; they’d somehow figure it out and take it away from me.
But I wanted the signal to last as long as possible so Radisson would have the best chance of getting to these people.
Now, as they carry me over to their car, I hope whatever I did will help him and not ruin everything.