Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
I’m outside. Do you want to come down here and speak to me, or am I going to come up there?
You can explain over text.
No, Mia. I imagine his voice husky and furious. I have to explain this in person. It’s too messy. And I need to see you. To make sure you’re safe.
I’m clearly safe.
I don’t know if this is you, and a photo won’t do it this time.
You’re not making any sense.
Answer the question, he sends. Am I coming up? Or are you coming down?
I thought it wasn’t safe? I retort like my defense mechanisms are flaring one final time.
I won’t let anything happen to you. I’m here to protect you.
I almost ask him why again, but no matter how many times I throw that question at him, he never gives me a clear and satisfying answer.
I’ll come down, I respond. Just give me a few minutes.
I hope you don’t mind dogs. I’ve got my greyhound with me. His name is Speeder.
That gets me smiling.
I often asked Dad if we could have a dog when I was growing up. Sometimes, he was enthusiastic about the idea, making my world light up as we made plans.
But then the darkness would come, and he’d decide there were too many risks.
It was too dangerous to have a ferocious animal in the house.
Even if the dog we were discussing were a chihuahua or something similar, the most docile, harmless creature imaginable – not that chihuahuas are always docile or harmless – Dad would inevitably decide I wanted to invite a ferocious predator into the home.
Going into my bedroom, I study myself in the mirror, my brown hair messy around my shoulders, my eyes seeming even wider, more shell shocked, more like the weird girl.
I was never bullied – because I was always at home – but I find myself studying parts of myself, wondering what any potential bullies might say. It’s a sick thing to do, especially now when I should be bolstering myself up and making it possible to feel good about myself.
So that I can go down there and face him.
Pulling on my sneakers, I head for the door, telling myself it’s just a trip to the store on the corner.
Or that I’m walking down to the safety of the car.
My car, not his.
There’s not a whole horrible world out there, armed with the words Dad gave it, about all the evil he said lived out there.
There’s just the regular world that everybody else lives in without causing an issue about it.
Down the stairs, my legs shaking, I keep walking, even as my head starts to cloud and every instinct in me screams at me to turn back, to get out of here.
Now.
It’s the same way I’d feel on the rare occasions I tried to sneak out at night, longing for the outside world even as the apartment promised safety.
As long as the walls of the house were around me, I didn’t have to worry about the things Dad talked about.
But it also meant I didn’t get to experience any of the good either.
Mom is in danger.
I repeat that sentence over and over as I walk down the stairs, as my entire being feels like it’s shaking.
Killian said Mom and I should pack a bag, meaning whatever this danger is, it extends to her.
That’s enough of a reason to keep going.
I have to keep her safe.
No matter what.
I suck in the bracing evening air when I push the door open, as though I’ve been drowning and have just caught my first breath.
It’s icy on my chest, filling me up.
Across the street, a car door opens.
A dog yaps.
There he stands, the man I fled from earlier, the man who bathed my body in steaminess yesterday.
He’s wearing the same shirt from earlier, and the sleeves are rolled up. His jeans are faded and blue and his boots are chunky. He looks ready to drag me into the car and kiss me firmly, to whisper possessively in my ear that he’ll never let anybody hurt me.
The backseat of his sleek sedan makes a yapping sound.
Killian smirks as I get closer. It’s like my feet are carrying me, not at all like I’m directing my footsteps.
I feel my ability to think disconnecting itself from my body, like I’m floating away.
It’s not fair.
I want to stay here with him, but my anxiety pushes me to the edge.
“Mia,” he says huskily, taking my hands.
Suddenly, I’m back in my body.
He pulls me close to him and wraps his arms around me. I sink into his warmth and….
And I don’t know what it is, this feeling.
But it erupts inside me.
His touch sparks something.
I’m blazing inside, the flames smoldering and burning like a freshly applied tattoo.
Not that I would know what that feels like.
Yet.
But this….
He kisses the top of my head, then pauses, as if inhaling my scent, all of me.