Twenty-Nine
Kat
You’re My Best Friend – Queen
The Maybach roars down the highway, and I watch as slower cars shrink into the distance behind us.
After I’d finished my pancakes, Elias took me down to his garage, and my jaw almost dropped.
No less than six cars and three motorbikes filled the large space.
I remember being impressed when I thought he just had a Porsche.
Now I’m here, sitting in a fucking Maybach? When did my life become so different?
The car moves as if it’s gliding, and the engine rumbles loudly. The world blurs past us as we speed along the road, fields, houses, and signs all disappearing before I can decipher what they say. Everything about this feels surreal, like I’ve stepped into someone else’s life.
Elias’s hand rests steadily on my knee in an attempt to ease my nerves—it doesn’t work.
I’d tried to get him to confess the secret as soon as he told me he was taking me somewhere, but trying to get Elias Monroe to break is not a simple task.
He just smiled, took my hand, and helped me into the car.
I toy with my necklace as I attempt to read every road sign that we speed past, yet nothing makes sense. Every time I think I know where we’re going, we drive past the exit. It’s like trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing.
Restaurant? No. We passed the town with the good ones.
Beach? Wrong direction.
City? Not even close.
My knee shakes up and down. Elias must notice this because he takes my hand.
“Please, Elias. Where are we going?” I plead, looking at yet another exit pass us by.
“I promise you, little rebel. In about ten minutes, your anxiety will be gone.” He gives my hand a small squeeze.
That answer wasn’t elusive at all. But it did tell me that we are less than ten minutes from our destination--—although at the speed Elias is driving, that could be anywhere from three miles to thirty miles away.
“Trust me, Kat,” he says, giving me a small smirk.
With those words, I realize that, against all odds and despite his elusiveness, I do trust him.
“I know,” he chuckles.
I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
There’s a look of amusement and anticipation in his eyes, yet a flash of something crosses his face, too quick to really notice.
I return my gaze to the window. The midday winter sun hangs low in the sky, and Elias momentarily drops his speed long enough for one sign to catch my eye.
It’s different from the others, and definitely within the ten-minute window.
My palms grow slick with a cold sweat as I put the pieces together.
“Elias, are we going to the fucking airport?”
No answer, but he flips his turn signal for the exit.
“Elias! I don’t have a passport and I’ve packed nothing, I’m still in last night’s clothes, for fuck’s sake!” A bead of cold sweat forms at the back of my neck. I think I might start hyperventilating.
His laugh cuts off my racing thoughts. “We’re not leaving the country, Kat,” he says with a squeeze of my hand. “Although we will need to go shopping to get you some clothes.”
“What makes you think I’ll be staying again if making me break out in an anxious sweat is how you treat your guests?” I ask, even though the thought of not staying again makes my chest ache.
“If I had my way, little rebel, you’d never leave.”
My cheeks heat, even though that’s exactly what I want as well. I give his hand a small squeeze in response.
He turns onto a road heading towards the airport…
but this part isn’t connected to the main terminal.
There’s a small runway with jets sitting on it, and it’s quieter here, more private.
It feels like the kind of place where rich, important people arrive without anyone noticing.
The thought seems more normal when I remember who is driving the car.
Where are we going?
Before I can wrestle with my emotions any further, Elias turns into the parking lot of a small building, far from the main terminal.
So he was telling the truth. We’re not leaving the country.
The Maybach crawls to a stop before Elias shuts it off.
“Ready?” he asks with a small smile.
“Ready for what?” I question, but he’s already halfway out of the car.
He rounds the hood before opening my door, offering me a hand, and helping me out.
The cold air bites every piece of my exposed skin, and I fend off the shiver that tries to take hold of my bones.
Great. I show up to the fancy part of the airport in a fucking corset and stockings in the middle of winter. Nice work, Kat.
The building is small with no signage. There’s a few cars parked in the lot, but I don’t have anything to go on. I don’t even know if we’re still at the airport—the only indication that we are is the small jets parked a hundred feet away.
My eyes catch on a car I’ve seen before, parked outside of Headstone. Elias takes my hand in his as we walk towards it, and Gareth steps out.
“What’s going on, Elias?” I say warily, my heart beginning to race.
Gareth moves suspiciously slowly to the back passenger door. As he opens it and reaches in, my entire world tightens around me.
Time itself seems to stop.
I’m aware of Elias beside me, his warm hand against my back the only tether to this world. I’m aware of the icy wind biting into my exposed skin and the distant sound of planes readying for takeoff, but none of it exists in this moment. The only things that exist at this moment in time is me and…
Freddie
No. That’s impossible. Freddie is hundreds of miles away. Freddie is—
Before I know it, I’ve let go of Elias’s hand and I’m running across the parking lot, my boots thudding against the tarmac.
My legs struggle to keep me moving, partly because of the cold but mostly because the entire reason for my existence is now thirty feet away from me.
Twenty-five feet away from me. My vision blurs. This has to be a fucking dream.
Twenty feet away.
Tears form behind my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. Ten feet away. My chest is tight as I push myself the last few feet. I stop abruptly in front of Gareth, who hands the carrier to me with a small smile.
My hands shake too much to hold it, so I drop to the floor, knees screaming with the pain and cold as I pry the carrier open.
A big ball of orange fluff steps onto my lap, not even allowing me to open the zipper fully.
Everything inside me shatters. The tears I was holding back now fall freely.
I pull him into my arms and nuzzle into his fur.
“Freddie!” I sob.
He rubs his face against mine and purrs loudly as he nestles into me. The sound of his purrs reaches the deepest part of my chest. I would know that purr anywhere. My body folds over him protectively as another sob rips free.
“Freddie, I’m so sorry,” I say, kissing his little head, now wet with my tears.
He rubs his nose against my cheek, leaving a cold, wet trail behind. My body is now shaking with sobs.
“I’m so sorry I left you. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t want to leave you there,” my voice breaks completely.
For weeks after I left him at the shelter, I imagined him alone, scared and thinking I’d abandoned him.
I didn’t stop crying for days. Eventually, I convinced myself that he was safe and warm, lying in front of a fire with an old married couple.
Their 2.33 kids had left for college, and they wanted an older cat to look after.
That had to be the reality, because the alternative tore me to shreds.
“Feisty little thing has been clawing me for hours, and now he’s a cuddle bug?” Gareth scoffs behind me, and I release a broken laugh through my tears.
I look up at Elias, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear tears were building behind his eyes too.
My chest fills with everything I want to say to him.
I want to thank him, to kiss him, to ask him a million and one questions.
I open my mouth, but the words turn to cement in my throat. Only one word escapes.
“How?”
Gareth takes this as his cue to leave the conversation. He turns on his heel and walks inside the building, the door thudding closed behind him.
Elias doesn’t answer, he simply gives a long exhale and drops to the floor beside me. His hand goes instinctively to my lower back.
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is he’s here now,” he says gently, giving Freddie a small scratch on the head. The gesture both fractures and heals something inside me.
I pull Freddie closer to me. He’s smaller now. He used to be more rotund, but he’s definitely been on a diet. He still smells the same. I’ve even missed the way his claws prickle into my skin. I just missed him.
“I’m so, so sorry, Freddie. Please forgive me. I promise I will never leave you again,” I tell him as I rub his ear, his purrs deepening. “Why? Why would you do this for me?” I ask Elias.
His features soften as he drops to the floor beside me, his eyes burning into my own. “Because you deserve this. You deserve everything, Kat.”
Freddie’s purrs rumble deep in my chest as Elias’s words vibrate through my heart.