Chapter Eleven
SUNNY
“Okay,” I let out a shaky breath.
“We decided to call you since it’s later there and the detectives didn’t want to wake you in case you were sleeping. We told them we would update you, we just didn’t want to have to wait until tomorrow,” My mother says.
“Okay.” Because it’s the only word I can say.
I’d been living in this in-between for the last two months. Is he dead after crawling his way out of the apartment? Is he alive, hiding in the shadows and already found me, waiting for his moment for revenge? I hate myself for wishing he’s dead, but I hate myself even more for wishing he’s alive.
“Sunny…Ryan he’s…he’s alive.”
I suck in a sharp breath and squeeze my eyes shut to refrain from letting the pain win again. And yet, it still does, as if the scar on my neck and the cracks of my heart aren’t enough of a brand.
No. Now I feel it even deeper. It laces through my bones, writing all the wrongs I have ever done that led up to this point, into my very marrow.
I’ll never be able to escape it. I’ll never be able to escape him. He has left a permanent mark that I’ll never be able to undo.
“They found a last known location for him. He wasn't here. He wasn't home,” My father says gently.
“Where?”
“He went to Oregon. They think he knows you were there.”
I throw a hand over my mouth as a sob escapes my throat. Everything I hoped wouldn’t happen is somehow happening. A tear escapes, sliding down my cheek and onto the concrete as evidence of my pain.
“Honey, he will not find you. We won’t let him, and the detectives are working hard to find him. They have a lead now, this is a scary thing, but it’s good. It’s good because now we know where he could be.” My mother tries to reassure me.
He is following me.
“He won’t be able to find you, Sunny. You are all the way across the country in a place you would never even expect.
You do not need to leave. Even the detectives said so.
He always knew you have family in Oregon.
” My father continues, but it does nothing to the panic settling in my chest, awakening from its brief slumber.
“Okay, I love you guys,” I rush out and then hang up the call. They’ve already seen me break enough. Once was already too much. My phone rings again with my fathers name and face on the screen. I stare at it, another tear drop slipping from my eyes and onto the screen.
This is a nightmare coming to me even when I’m not asleep.
“Sunny?”
Tyler.
I jolt, dropping my phone to the ground with a thud. I squat down to pick it up and swipe my nose with the sleeve of my undershirt. Finally turning to look at him, hoping the shadows of the parking lot mask the evidence of my pain.
“I used to be,” I croak.
His brows crease and within a second he is closing the space between us. Reaching his arms out, he cradles my face, wiping the tears that unwillingly cascade down it.
“What is it? What happened?”
“Tyler,” I whisper through a small, pathetic sob. Words are difficult when your voice has been silenced for so long.
“I’m here, baby. What is it? What do you need?” He searches my face.
Another sob claws up my throat, but I get the courage to meet his eyes. “He’s alive.”
The slow roll of his throat catches my attention, leading me to the beat of his pulse in his neck. Each beat gets faster and faster.
“The detectives found that he is or was in Oregon. Which is where I was, before coming here. With my aunt and uncle.” I clear my throat of the screams that are building up. “So, it’s either coincidence because he knew I had family there, or that he truly has found a way to trace my departure.”
He nods slowly, his eyes looking elsewhere. Nowhere in this realm, but in his own mind. Finally he brings his gaze back to me. “What do you need from me, Sunny?”
The words are heavy on my tongue. The voice that had been stripped from me clawing at the back of my throat for release. It wants only to yell all the worst things I’ve kept at bay, because I’m too afraid to admit them.
“I hate myself,” I finally breathe. I look at him as tears line my eyes and spill over my cheeks, but I won’t run from them anymore. He shakes his head, denying it before anything more can be said.
“Stop,” he warns, but his voice catches, too.
“I had a perfect life. And because of my choices, here I am now. I ignored it for so long. I could’ve left. I could’ve…”
“You didn’t choose to be abused,” he reminds me.
I know he’s right, but the anger remains nonetheless.
I have this big, ugly, festering wound of anger, pain and hurt.
It used to be filled with sunshine and a fire that refused to succumb to the snuff of anyone else.
Now, all that’s left are burnt ashes and smoke decaying what’s left of me.
What if it never heals? What if I never heal?
It's this moment I realize I’m hyperventilating with a hand around my throat as I try to step out of his arms. The ground feels like it’s caving from my feet while simultaneously spinning.
I am a statistic.
He brings his forehead to mine. “Breathe, Sunny. Breathe.”
I follow his commands, closing my eyes and allowing his body to mold to mine as a means to ground me. The tears continue, but I can finally breathe.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t. Don’t even go there, Sunny.” He shakes his head.
“I need to scream,” I admit.
“Then scream.” He offers his chest as a barrier to muffle my hurt, taking my pain from me and making it his own.
So I scream.
My pain reverberates through his body, and he holds onto me tightly, refusing to let go despite it all.
It’s unyielding, the way his body clings to mine.
No matter the way it continues over and over and over through the echoes of my screams. The way the hurt and pain courses through my veins, as a living thing, now penetrates his skin and becomes a part of him.
Those screams turn into sobs. The anger breaking down my vulnerable heart and manifesting to the pain that has rooted itself so deeply in me.
Forcing my body to give way to the abundance of emotions I’ve finally released.
Through it all, Tyler’s voice still laces the air, that’s filled with my anguish, in a series of soft it’s okay and I’m here.
“I’ve got you Sunny. I’ve got you.”
And I cry harder, thinking, maybe this is what he needed growing up, too. To just scream all the pain away. For someone to actually listen because that’s what he did for me.
He listened.
“Let me find him,” he whispers into my hair.
“What?” I look up at him through watery eyes.
He cups my face, gently stroking the tears away. He meets my gaze, those greens a lethal calm.
“Let me find him. If you tell me everything, I can find him and put an end to it all.” He continues brushing my tears with his thumbs. “Just give me the word Sunny.”
I have done bad things, Sunny.
Shaking my head, more tears well up in my eyes as I try to step back. Bringing him here would make things worse. I want to be as far away from Ryan as possible. Tyler finding him would mean bringing him back into my life.
I may still be shackled, but at least my links are longer. I can live with that.
“No,” I whisper.
“Sunny, please. I can put an end to this. Let me and Cole find him. If you can just give me something other than his first name. Give me more.” He holds me tighter now, trying to make me look at him.
“No,” I sob again. “The detectives said that he is probably just doing what I’m doing—moving on. Moving past this and trying to start a new life.”
“You cannot let him walk freely from this. You can’t let him get away with it. You and I both know he isn’t just trying to move on.” His eyes search my face for the answer I refuse to give him.
“He won’t stop, Tyler. He won’t stop if you bring him here. If you find him. What if the court sides with him because I hit him back and left him for dead?”
“We don’t need the court, baby. I can make that go away, too. I can make it as if he never even existed.”
I’ve done bad things, Sunny.
As I look into his eyes, I realize just how much power Tyler holds. Though he won’t tell me or give away any details in what he does, it only encourages that curiosity inside me. My mind stuck wondering the lengths he’d go to protect those he cares about.
You’ve killed people, Tyler.
Mitchell uses him for this very reason. Now I know why Tyler has said his world is one of no law. I will not be like Mitchell—using him for his abilities, for my own benefit.
I just need to stick to the plan. Stick to the plan.
Just because Ryan is in Oregon doesn’t have to mean anything. We visited there all the time. It’s a place he is familiar with, where he can move on, too.
“Promise me, Tyler,” I say through more tears and clenched teeth.
His face fractures, knowing what I’m going to make him promise.
“Promise me you won’t abuse that power. Just let me stick to my plan.
Okay? Let me stick to my plan and live my life.
” I sniffle. “Promise me you won’t go down that dark path.
Promise me you won’t be like your father abusing the power, the system.
Promise me you won’t do what I think you want to do,” I plead.
“Swear it. Swear it on Sam, the family. On us. Our friendship. I’ll never forgive you, Tyler.
I will never forgive you if you shatter that promise and become who you always feared.
” I refuse to be a contributing factor to the abuse he’s endured.
He deserves normalcy. “I don’t care if you do it for anything else but not for me.
Not for me. I won’t forgive you. I won’t forgive myself. ”
He stares at me, contemplating, his chest moving slowly up and down.
His pulse still bounds in his neck, the only indication of his true thoughts.
The only flaw in the lethal calm exterior he presents.
His eyes move up and down me, his predatory character breaking as a flash of pain fractures his facade.
He nods. “Okay.”
“Promise.” I hold my pinky up.
“I promise, Sunny.” He hooks his pinky with mine.