Chapter 17 - Cillian
Amber listened with a blank, neutral expression as he told her about Eric and the Night Pack coming to them.
Though her face might have been a mask, her eyes betrayed her fear, as did her hands, which wrung in her lap even as her gaze remained fixed on him.
When he had finished, she didn’t say anything for a long moment.
Instead, she simply stared, dumbfounded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “A lot of this is my fault. I fucked up. I should have been more careful.”
“It’s all right,” she muttered, her voice distant. Her fingers clenched, then relaxed. After she let out a slow breath, she straightened, her jaw tight. “So we’re leaving, right?”
Already, she was standing and heading toward the stairs, as if she were already going to fetch her suitcase.
“No,” Cillian said.
She froze at the word, as if unable to process it. Slowly, after a long moment, she turned to regard him.
“What do you mean, no?” she asked. He could tell she was trying to remain strong, but the quaver in her voice was impossible to miss.
He also didn’t miss the way her arms had wrapped around her stomach or the way her hands were white-knuckling her biceps, as if she were grasping them to stop her hands from trembling.
He let out a deep breath. Part of him wanted to do what she asked because he didn’t like seeing her this frightened. But he knew it was the wrong move. He just needed to make sure she understood.
“We need to know more before we do anything,” he said. “Running right now won’t do us any good, considering our lack of information.”
“Lack of information? Eric’s coming here. What more do you need to know?” Her voice rose an octave.
Once again, she turned, walking to the stairs. This time, Cillian reached out and grasped her wrist. She stiffened. He released her, and she backed away.
“We have an idea of where he is,” Cillian said.
“Great! I just won’t go there. Problem solved.”
“But we don’t know if he’s there for sure,” Cillian continued patiently. “At the moment, we need to evaluate what’s going on and do some scouting before we make any plans about leaving or staying. It’s for the best.”
“I need to leave, at the very least,” she said. “Please. He’s going to come after me if he knows I’m here.”
“He’s not going to go after you,” Cillian said. “Staying here in the house will keep you safe.”
“No, it won’t. Not with Eric.” Her voice wavered. “He’ll find me. He’s not going to let me go again. If I leave now, maybe I can get far enough away that he won’t be able to track me. I can come back once everything blows over.”
Amber started pacing across the living room, pushing her hair back from her forehead, her eyes constantly flicking toward the door as if expecting Eric to burst into the house at any minute.
Cillian could hear her heart pounding from here, as fast as a drum line, and he could smell the fear mixing with her scent.
He hadn’t seen her look like this since the day he had found her with Eric.
Pushing himself from the couch, he walked over and intercepted her. He grasped her arm and got her to stop pacing. She stiffened for the briefest of moments at his touch, then eased when her eyes met his.
“I know it’s scary,” he said. “But we need to stay put for now.”
“But—”
“Imagine we’re wrong,” Cillian said. “And I send you straight to Eric by mistake. I’m never going to be able to live with myself.”
“Imagine he finds out where I live and comes here,” Amber said. She wrenched herself away from him and took several steps back. “Could you live with yourself then? He knows who you are, Cillian. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for him to figure out where you live.”
Cillian sighed, trying to keep an even tone, wanting to soothe her, to ease her fear. “Just give me a couple of days first,” he said. “At least until we have more information. The house is safe. He won’t be able to—”
“You don’t know that,” she cut him off.
“Amber, I know you’re upset, but you need to calm down and think straight for a minute,” Cillian said. “You’re letting him get in your head, and it’s impacting your judgment.”
She walked over to him and grabbed his shirt, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “Please,” she said. “Let me leave. You can stay here, but just let me take a vacation somewhere until this is all over. If he’s coming, I want to be as far away as possible.”
“Not just yet.” He took her wrist, his thumb stroking the back of her palm. His other hand went to the small of her back. “Give me a couple of days, all right?”
She shook her head. “It might be too late by then.”
His hand rested on her shoulder, trying to ground her.
“Running away isn’t going to solve all of your problems,” he said, still trying to keep his tone gentle.
Amber let out a harsh, bitter laugh that sounded strange coming out of her, as if she’d been possessed. “It would solve this problem,” she said.
“Like it did last time?” he asked.
Her eyes flashed in warning. He didn’t like making the jab, but he needed to make her understand.
“I get that you want to leave,” he said. “Trust me. I completely understand why you would want to. But you can’t keep running. Every time you run, you’re giving him power over you.”
“Every time I run, I put distance between myself and him,” she said. “If I leave now, he might not find me. I can probably get several towns over before he gets here and starts looking for me.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Cillian repeated.
She scoffed, some of her fire returning in her anger. “In that case, I’m leaving on my own,” she said and started marching toward the garage door.
Cillian got there first and blocked her path. She stopped, her eyes narrowed. Without another word, she spun on her heels. He knew without having to ask that she was heading toward the back door. He took two long strides to catch up with her and grasped her wrist, tugging her to face him.
Gasping, she tried to wrench her wrist out of Cillian’s grasp. He held fast, his expression resolute. She looked up at him, and he hated seeing that fear in her eyes.
“Give me your car keys,” he said.
“No.” She tried to tug her hand away again.
Sighing, hating himself more than a little, he pulled the keys out of her hand, where she was still clutching them, and tucked them in his pocket.
“I’m sorry,” he said, taking in her horrified expression. He might as well have slapped her, and he knew she was never going to forgive him for what he was doing. He’d live with that if it meant keeping her safe.
“Cillian, let me leave,” she said.
“I’m not going to let you do that,” he said, his voice firm, resolute.
“Cillian—”
“This is just fear,” he said. He tried to keep his voice even, soothing, hoping that would help. “It’s not you. You’re stronger than this, Amber. You don’t need to run from him. That asshole has controlled your life for too long.”
“I don’t care what you think I do or don’t need to do,” Amber said, her voice cracking. “I want to leave.”
“I know you do,” he said. “But you can’t. Not now. You’re panicking.”
“Of course I’m panicking!” she exclaimed. “You just told me that the asshole who abused me for years and then sold me off when he found me a second time was coming here. I thought this place would be safe. Now I have to run again.”
“Amber, please.”
“Come with me, then,” she said. “If you’re so worried about keeping me safe, then come with me.”
“If I didn’t need to stay here and defend the pack, I would,” he said. “But I can’t just walk away, especially since this is my fault in the first place.”
“Then give me the keys and let me leave.”
“No, Amber.”
She yanked her hand out of his grasp. “God, you are so fucking controlling,” she spat. “You know, I thought you were different than Eric, but you’re just as bad.”
Cillian took a step back, his frustration temporarily mitigated by the shock at the vitriol in her words.
“I’m not as bad as Eric,” he said. The words sounded flimsy to his ears, a feeble argument that wasn’t going to go anywhere.
“You forced me to marry you,” she hissed.
“You forced me to move into your home. It doesn’t matter if you built some shelves for me.
You didn’t ask my opinion on any of it. You just decided that it was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not.
You literally just stole my car keys. That was the first thing he did last time he found me. ”
It felt like a slap. Amber continued to glower at him, her fingers curled into fists, her chin jutting out in defiance. He stared at her, unsure what to say as her words washed over him, burrowing deep.
“I’m not Eric,” Cillian said. It was all he could think to say. “I’m doing this to help you.”
She let out a harsh, angry laugh. “Aren’t you the one who warned me you had a dark side?
” she asked. “The two of you could start a club. At least Eric embraces it instead of hiding behind a lie and trying to convince people that he’s a decent guy.
But the two of you are cut from the same cloth.
Just my luck. I would have one piece-of-shit asshole drag me away from a different one. ”
At first, he couldn’t move, too stunned. The words swam in his head. Was he really as bad as Eric? That wasn’t possible, was it?
Apparently satisfied at the fact that she had rendered him temporarily mute, she scoffed, almost triumphantly, and moved back to march to the front door. This time, before she could spin around, Cillian grasped her shoulder and twisted her back so she was looking at him.
“You’re not leaving,” Cillian snarled.
Something must have sparked in his eyes because Amber’s own widened, and she took a hesitant step back. He hated seeing that surprise and borderline fear on her face and knowing that he was the one who put it there.
“Yes, I am,” she replied with gritted teeth. She shrugged out of his grip and took several steps back.
His expression didn’t falter. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “I’ll lock you in your bedroom if I have to.”
She froze, her eyes widening. Her lips parted, as if she couldn’t believe the words coming out of Cillian’s mouth.
He couldn’t blame her; he could barely believe he was saying them.
He had never imagined himself as this kind of man, but here he was.
He wasn’t going to let her leave, not when they had so few answers.
It was too dangerous, and she was too afraid to think about it rationally.
“You wouldn’t,” she said, her voice soft, almost in warning, as if she was giving him one final chance to stop this and let her go.
“I would if it meant keeping you safe,” he growled.
She stared up at him. “Cillian, if you do that, I will never forgive you,” she warned, her voice still soft but dangerous.
“I know,” he said. “I’ll take that if it means keeping you safe.”
“Don’t do this,” she implored, backing up.
Cillian began closing the gap, coming closer. “I don’t want to. But right now, you aren’t giving me much choice.”
She kept stepping back, Cillian following her. Her eyes flicked around as if searching for an escape.
“This is a bad idea, Cillian,” she said.
“I know you’re going to hate me for it,” he said. “And I wish I didn’t have to do any of this, but I would do anything to keep you safe.”
It wasn’t until she darted to the side that he realized she had been dragging him further into the room, away from the door. She had been trying to give herself the space to sprint around him.
She ran faster than he would have expected, circling far enough away from him that he couldn’t just reach out and stop her. But she wasn’t fast enough. He dashed after her and grasped her arm just before she reached the door.
“Let me go,” she spat, trying to wrench her hand from his grasp once more.
“I’m not going to do that,” he said.
“I’m not staying here,” she said, still trying to tug her arm away.
“You are until we know more,” he said, pulling her deeper into the house and toward the stairs.
“Don’t you dare,” she warned, but the sudden weakness in her tone told him she knew it was already too late.
Cillian sighed, trying to smother some of the guilt writhing through him at what he was doing. Still, despite that unease, he didn’t hesitate. This was the right thing to do, even if she didn’t see it.
He pushed her up the steps, nudging her forward a step at a time, not letting go of her as she let out a string of curse words. Every time she tried to stall, he gave her another nudge. She glared at him before reluctantly moving.
It took longer than normal to make their way up to the second floor, but eventually they cleared the landing.
He opened the door to her room and ushered her inside.
All the doors were old-fashioned, the kind with physical keys and keyholes, the ones that could be locked on either side.
He had always liked the style, though he had never expected to actually use the locks.
He plucked the key resting in the inside lock.
Amber walked toward the door, as if hunting for some way around him. He blocked her path. She stopped a few feet away, looking at him as if she had never seen him before in her life. She licked her lips.
“Cillian,” she said. “You really don’t want to do this.”
“I don’t,” he admitted. “But I will if it means keeping you safe.”
“Just let me go, and we can forget all of this.”
“We can talk about it later.”
She jutted out her chin. “If you do this, I’m never going to forgive you.”
He winced. “I know. But you’ll be safe. At the moment, that’s all I care about.”
Before she could respond, he stepped out of the room. He closed the door and locked it, leaving the key twisted in the lock. He could feel her glare through the wood as he walked away.
Guilt lanced through him. He knew he was being impulsive. More importantly, he knew that Amber meant it when she said she’d never forgive him for what he’d done. But this was the only way he could keep her safe.
If that meant she hated him from here on out, so be it. He would take that sacrifice.