15. Lorraine
Chapter Fifteen
Lorraine
“ L ori?”
I ignored my sister, turning the music on my radio up a little louder.
“Lori,” Cat said again.
I bobbed my head to the music and mouthed the words.
“Lorraine!” Dad said, popping his head into my room. “Don’t ignore your sister.”
I groaned. “I just want to do my own thing, Dad. She’s always following me around. Why doesn’t she just find some friends?”
“She’s your sister,” Dad said. “You’re the best friend she’ll ever have.”
I groaned and switched off the radio, getting off my bed. “What?” I snapped at Cat.
She stood in front of my door with an ice cream in each hand. The ice cream had started melting, dripping down her hands.
“I got one for you, but it’s melting,” she said.
My heart constricted. I was such a bitch to my little sister, and she was so sweet.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I love it when it starts to melt.”
Cat grinned at me. “It’s nice that way, right?”
I nodded. “Let’s go eat it outside so we don’t have to clean up after ourselves.”
We walked through the house and out the back door where we sat on the steps, eating our ice cream together.
“Do you think we’ll always be together?” Cat asked.
“Of course,” I said.
“Mom says we’ll live in our own homes one day, but I don’t know if I want that.”
“Maybe we’ll just have to see each other all the time. But you’ll want to live in your own house with your husband.”
Cat crinkled her nose. “Ew. I don’t think I’ll want a husband.”
I giggled. “Maybe one day.”
“I don’t want to share a house with a boy. I want to share it with you.”
I smiled and nudged my little sister with my shoulder.
“Come on, girls,” Dad said. “In the car. We’re going on a trip.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“It’s a surprise,” he answered.
Cat and I got rid of our ice cream sticks and washed our hands before we ran to the car. Cat was excited, bounding ahead of me, her pigtails streaming behind her. I followed, and we got into the car.
Dad pulled into the road, and Mom sat next to him.
“Not so fast,” she warned him.
“It’ll be fine,” he said.
“You’re driving like a maniac,” Mom said.
A car cut in front of us, and Dad had to slam on the brakes.
“It’s not me you have to worry about,” Dad grumbled. “Everyone’s driving like an idiot.”
“Then slow down, so you’re not the idiot, too.”
Dad muttered something and changed lanes. A car appeared out of nowhere, flying toward us.
It happened so fast that before I knew it, it had hit us. Metal crunched on metal.
“Cat?” I asked when the car came to a standstill. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” Cat said.
She was suddenly much older. Gone was the pigtailed girl who’d brought me ice cream. The grown-up Cat sat next to me.
“Mom? Dad?” I called out.
The front of the car was crumpled, with no space for anyone in the front seats, but there was no one there.
“Where are they?” I asked Cat.
“Who?”
“Mom and Dad,” I said. “Where are they, Cat?”
Cat frowned at me. “What are you talking about?”
I shook my head and got out of the car. When I did, I nearly bumped into someone. Oscar stood in front of me and gripped my arms.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trembling with fear. I hadn’t seen Oscar since…
I couldn’t remember what had happened. Something was wrong—terribly, terribly wrong—but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“You can’t keep doing this, Lorraine,” Oscar growled.
“Doing what?”
“It’s your fault you’re in this mess, and now you want to drag Cat into it, too?”
“She’s okay,” I said, shaking my head. “It was just an accident.”
Oscar shook me, and my head snapped back and forth.
“This is all on you, Lorraine. Your parents, and now Cat.”
“What’s wrong with Cat?” I demanded. I wrenched myself around in Oscar’s arms to look for my sister, but the car was empty now. She was gone, too.
“Oscar, where is she?” I cried out.
“I sold her to get rid of my debts. You told me I could.”
“What?”
“When you didn’t fulfill the bargain, they needed someone else.”
“No!” I cried out, and my knees buckled.
“First your parents, and now your sister,” Oscar said, tutting.
When I opened my eyes, I lay in the bed, the quilt a twisted, tangled knot all around me. I wasn’t breathing hard, didn’t have a quick pulse and a sweaty brow the way I usually felt after a nightmare. My breathing was normal. I just felt so incredibly alone.
Alone, and guilty.
My parents had died because I’d insisted on going to a party, and I’d asked them to pick me up because Oscar had been too drunk to drive. They were dead because of me, and now my sister was in danger because of the man I’d chosen to spend my life with.
I was out here, far away from reality, having sex and sleeping in. And my sister was somewhere, in danger… or worse.
I covered my face with my hands, and my heart sank, dragging me down. My chest felt hollow, my heart beat slow and heavy, and I closed my eyes again. I could sleep forever, and it wouldn’t be enough.
I didn’t feel like I’d slept at all.
“Lorraine?” a deep voice called, and I lifted my head. The sun fell through the window at a different angle. I must have fallen asleep again.
I blinked at Ash, who stood at the door to my room. “Ash?”
He nodded slowly, his blue eyes boring into me.
I sat up, and his eyes slid over my body. I was wearing the T-shirt I’d been kidnapped in. It and my robe were the only things I still had from home.
“I have to go home,” I said in a creaky voice.
Ash looked into my eyes again. “You can’t go.”
“I have to,” I said, raising my voice. “My sister needs me.”
Ash shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lorraine. You can’t leave yet.”
“So I’m supposed to be your prisoner, is that it?” I snapped. “You saved me from the others, only to keep me here as your pet?”
Ash’s face darkened. “Have I treated you badly?”
He was right—he hadn’t done anything to make me feel like a prisoner. I was free to leave if I really wanted. I knew I could walk out that door. But I feared the outside world.
I was the one who was choosing to stay.
“No,” I finally answered, adding in a smaller voice, “I worry about what they did to her after they lost me.”
Ash pursed his lips.
“Help me get back home,” I said. “Or help me find a phone. Anything—I just need to find out what’s going on with her.”
“I can’t help you, Lorraine,” Ash said curtly, turning away from me.
“That’s it?” I asked, getting off the bed. I followed him to the front door. “You’re just going to leave me here like this?”
“I can’t stay,” he said.
Dammit, that’s all he ever said! “Because you have stuff to take care of, right?” I demanded.
“Right,” he said.
I shook my head. “I just want to know if she’s alright. Haven’t you ever known someone who was in danger? Haven’t you ever needed help?”
Ash’s face hardened. “You and I are not the same. I can’t relate to your troubles, and I’m pretty damn sure you can’t relate to mine.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Ash only shook his head and left the cabin again.
I wanted to run after him, demand to know what the hell was going on. I wanted him to talk to me, to help me, to save me.
But he’d already done all of that, hadn’t he? He wasn’t obligated to do it anymore. Hell, he hadn’t even been obligated to do what he’d already done.
Despite knowing he didn’t owe me anything, I was still furious with him, but I knew what it was that I felt.
My anger stemmed from fear. Fear that I would lose Cat, just like I’d lost my parents. Fear that it would be my fault again.
I sank to the floor and cried. I let all the tears I’d been biting back since my nightmare, since the kidnapping, since my parents’ deaths, run down my cheeks. I didn’t try to stop them.
Time became strange. I had no way of knowing what time it was. Without a phone or a watch or anything to ground me, I felt like I was stuck in a bubble.
I didn’t know how long it had been when Philippa came to see me again.
“You look terrible,” she said when she walked into the cabin. “What’s wrong?”
“I just had a bad couple of days,” I said.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Philippa suggested. “It will do you good to get out of the house and breathe some fresh air. Sunshine does wonders for the skin, you know.”
I smiled. “That’s not what I’ve heard.”
“Well, it’s not good in excess, but you need to get out of this place. It’s so dark and gloomy in here, I can almost taste your sadness.”
I nodded. She was right, I had to get out. I hadn’t gotten out of the house in a while, and I needed to stretch my legs.
We left the cabin and walked through the trees toward the stream behind the cabin. Philippa smiled with delight when we reached the edge of the water.
“It’s glorious out here,” she said, kicking off her sandals before she stepped into the stream. She laughed when the water ran over her toes. “Come, Lorraine, join me!”
I hesitated. I wasn’t in the mood, but Philippa looked so happy, so wild and free, and I wanted that, too.
I stepped into the water. The water was cool on my skin and ran over my toes. It tickled and soothed at the same time.
“I don’t think he cares,” I said.
“Who?”
“Ash. I don’t think he cares about me at all.”
“Why do you say that?” Philippa asked.
“Because he doesn’t care that my sister might be in danger or that I’m stuck here, away from my life. Cat needs me, and Ash doesn’t think it’s a big deal. He just keeps telling me I can’t leave.”
Philippa frowned. “You can’t leave for a while still.”
I sighed. “Yeah, that’s what Ash keeps saying, too. Surely, the men who are after me gave up the search by now? How long has it been? I’m terrified they forgot about me and went after my sister instead.”
Philippa didn’t say anything, so I kept talking.
“I tried to get him to see it, but he doesn’t care what my life is. He just cares about what he can get from me.” The words were bitter in my mouth. I’d told myself after we’d slept together that it didn’t mean anything, that I preferred it that way, but I was an emotional mess. I just wanted Ash to care about something.
“Ash has been through a tough time,” Philippa said. “I know from where you’re standing, it might feel like he doesn’t care, but he’s been hurt pretty badly.”
“By a woman?” I asked.
Philippa nodded. “He loved her so much, and she ripped his heart out and stomped on it. He was willing to give everything up for her, and just when he did, she walked away.” She glanced up at me with her jade eyes. “Don’t be too hard on him. He might not understand your reality, but you don’t know about his, either.”
I nodded. She was right—I knew nothing about Ash. He didn’t tell me anything about himself, that was why.
“Maybe if he shared things with me, I would understand him better,” I said. “He doesn’t say anything at all.”
“He’s not in the habit of using words. He uses actions.”
I snorted. “Well, his actions say a lot about what he wants, but they don’t say anything else.”
“He’s trying to protect himself. He saved you, but there’s no one around to save him.”
I turned those words over in my mind, trying to decide how I felt about them. Was it unfair of me to expect him to reach out more than he already did? I didn’t know what his life was like. Was it better for me to let it slide and accept his behavior as self-defense rather than indifference?
“I’m just so stuck,” I admitted. “I can’t leave, but staying here makes me feel so isolated. I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know when it will end, and I feel like despite Ash being so close to me, he’s still so incredibly far.”
Philippa nodded. “We all feel that way. We lost him when Ava tore him up, and we’ve all tried to get him back since then. You’re the first person he gets up for every day again.”
It felt to me like Ash was distant and cold, unless he wanted to fuck. Was I really the first person he’d reached out to? I wished I understood him more. I wished he would open up so I could catch a glimpse of who he was underneath that hard shell around him.
Then again, I was crazy to want to reach out and get involved with someone again. I should have been happy that things were so distant between us, with no expectations. It was what I wanted, wasn’t it?
But being with Ash made me feel something different, like two pieces of a puzzle were coming together. It made me feel like in a way, this was where I belonged. It didn’t make any sense.
I wished things were simpler. I wished everything made sense.
I wished for a lot of things that never came true.
“Have you seen the orchard?” Philippa asked suddenly.
“What?”
“The orchard. It’s just beyond the stream, behind those trees over there.” She pointed in a direction. “Come, let me show you.”
She crossed the stream, and I followed. When we stepped onto the grass, my skin tingled with warmth. I took a deep breath.
Out here, nothing was as it seemed. I was starting to think more and more that something was up. Something Cat might have tried to tell me was magic.
I’d never believed her before, but now…