by Lena Maye
“I’ll be in touch,” Carly says. “The second I hear anything, I’ll let you know. Lillian is packing me a bag as we speak, and I’ll be there tomorrow evening.”
I breathe out. “Thank you.”
Carly keeps talking for a few minutes, telling us what we’re going to hear during the press conference. Telling us that the other car in the accident was an old pick-up truck driven by a single man. Carly says the man had no connection to our mother. But Anthony shakes his head and crosses his arms over his chest as she talks about how the driver had a bed full of old, rotten firewood that he was taking to the landfill. When the truck hit the prison transport, the wood scattered and bounced across the road, making it difficult for emergency crews to get close. An unexpected situation, Carly called it. Otherwise, my mother would have been captured at the scene.
I listen quietly, taking it all in and glancing at my brother in intervals.
When I hang up, Anthony uncrosses his arms. “She’s going to try to come here.”
He’s right.
Family first.
39
Ella
I pace the dock until the Heroine appears on the horizon. I’m not sure what I’m going to tell Dean, but I need to tell him something. And my hands haven’t stopped shaking since the call with Carly. I’d been calmer when she gave us the news, almost in a trance, but since then a panic has settled deep within me, threatening to rattle me apart if I let it.
This can’t be happening.
She’ll try to come here. I’m sure of it.
What if she makes it here? What will she do?
I know one thing very clearly: whatever happens, I need to keep her away from Dean.
Probably away from Charles too. But my focus is more centered on the man who smiles at me from the deck of the Heroine. He jumps over and walks to me, leaving Dev and Renee to tie the boat off.
The boat. If she comes here, it’ll be the first thing she sees. Charles’s boat.
He catches me in his arms, pulling me up to my toes before planting a kiss on my cheek. My heart jumps into my throat.
I have to keep him safe.
“This is a surprise.” He grins down at me. “I thought you’d be over your head in festival activities.”
“It’s busy.” I give him a weak smile. “I mean, Anthony and I are busy. And I’m sure you are too.”
His forehead wrinkles. “Is everything okay?”
“I…” I should have planned this better. “I need you to do a favor for me.”
“Name it.” He steps back, tilting his head as he looks at me. He’s zeroing in on something, and I fidget, clasping my hands in front of me.
“If I told you that we needed to spend a few days apart, that would be okay, right?”
The lines in his forehead deepen. “Come on, El. Don’t talk around it. Tell me what you want.” He reaches out to take my hand, but I sidestep away.
What if she’s here now? The thought hits me with such force. What if she’s already here and watching me?
He stills. “Okay, Ella. You really need to tell me what’s going on. The truth. Because you’re starting to worry me. Whatever this is, we can get through it together.”
“No,” I whisper. “We can’t. It’s my mother. She escaped, and she’s probably on her way here.”
“Fuck.” His shoulders go rigid as he blinks at me. Then he reaches out to grab my hand. “What do you need?”
I step away from him again. “I n-need you to leave. Take the Heroine and just leave for a few days.”
His eyes darken as he stares down at me. “I’m not going to leave you. If you want to leave, then fine. We’ll get on that boat. Together.”
I shake my head. “I can’t leave Anthony—”
“Then he’ll come too.” He keeps stepping forward, keeps trying to pull me against him. And every part of me wants to sink into him, but I can’t let myself. “It’s a big fucking boat. And it can go almost anywhere.”
“And I can’t leave the festival. I can’t run.” The thing that I’ve done for so long. Run. Hide. Pretend you don’t exist. “I won’t be a scared little girl in a closet. I’ll be fine, but you can’t be with me.”
“No.” His stance widens, that jaw ticking as he stares down at me.
“This is not a game, Dean.” He doesn’t understand. I have to make him understand somehow.
His expression darkens, falling into something stormy that I’ve never seen.
“I know it’s not a game,” he says evenly. “That’s why I’m sure. I’m not going to let you stand there alone. I’m going to be right there next to you. Every step of the way.”
He doesn’t know what she’s capable of. And now she has a gun. Which isn’t syringes and handcuffs and knives and things that take time. Guns are sudden. One second—one quick decision—and Dean could be gone.
It tears me apart that we’re having this argument. On the off chance that she makes it here. But I know that I’m right about this. Everything I have vibrates with certainty.
Keeping him safe means keeping him away from me. My mother won’t discard me or Anthony or Renee, but she’d throw the son of Charles Archer away in a flash. I have no doubt she would hurt the son of a man who hurt her.
“You can’t always be my hero.” I bite down on my bottom lip until I taste blood. “I’m telling you to s-stay away from me.”
He flinches. “Are you breaking up with me again?”
Oh, God. No. My thoughts revolt, but I stop them before they spill from my lips. If that’s what it takes to make him stay away from me, then that’s what I’ll do.
“Don’t do this.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “Don’t walk away from me. You’re letting your fear of her control you. Just trust me, and we’ll figure this out together.” Hair tipped blond by the sun. Lemon and cedar. I imagine that if the breeze had a scent, it would be him. His pull is almost too hard to resist. “I need you to trust me.”
“I told you I didn’t need a hero, and I don’t.” My throat closes around the words.
“No. That’s not—”
“Anchor,” I say. Then I turn and force myself to walk away from him.
Dean
Anchor.
My veins are live wires—all connected together and all snapping at the same time. She broke up with me again. I know that’s not the most important part of our conversation, but that’s the part that just about ripped me apart.
I asked for her trust. Asked to be her hero. And she rejected me.
I thought we’d moved beyond this. That we’d been going somewhere over the last weeks. Together. Learning to trust each other. Not running off from each other alone.
A woman from the family we took out today walks up to me, smiling. Saying something about how lovely the day was.
She’s right. It was a pretty damn good day. I woke up next to Ella and walked her to the bakery. She rambled about the festival the whole way, and I was excited for her. I knew that everything was going to work out. For once, I didn’t feel any clouds looming on the horizon.
And then the world got yanked out from underneath me.
The woman keeps talking, but I just turn and walk around her. It’s a dick thing to do, but if I open my mouth, I’ll say something worse than just walking away. And I’ve got about a million thoughts to sort out.
Not the least of which is… Mira Jacobs escaped? I’ve got to get over this sparking anger—and the pain that’s likely lingering underneath—so I can focus on that.
Focus on doing whatever the fuck I need to do to make sure that Ella is safe. She thinks we can’t do it together, fine. But I’m still going to do it. Because whether she wants it or not, I am her hero. And that’s a role I refuse to give up until I know that she’s okay.
I cross the deck and stop in front of Renee. If I can’t be there for Ella, then I’ll help someone else do that.
“Ella needs a friend.” I take the brush she’s using to clean the topsides. “I’ll finis
h.”
She blinks up at me. “What?”
“Go.” The word’s not more than a growl, but I’m not capable of explaining. The live wires are shooting down my arm and into the brush that my fingers clench.
“Dean? What happened?” Renee stares up at me, wide-eyed.
“Fucking go.” I yell at her, jabbing the brush toward the Harborwalk. She flinches, and I turn away, setting to work on the deck, ignoring her until she grabs her stuff from below and then takes off down the dock, already talking on her phone.
I could put off cleaning until tomorrow, but the truth is that focusing on the details is helping to calm me down. I know I owe Renee an apology, but I can’t even think past my anger enough to figure out how to do that yet. I just need to work through it. Somehow. So I focus on the task before me. A task I can actually complete.
Until Dev steps in my way. “What’s going on, man?”
“I don’t think you want to know.” I keep scrubbing.
“Fuck that.” He shoves me in the shoulder, and I look up with a murderous glare.
He points toward the hatch. “Drink in the galley. Now.”
40
Ella
Dean consumes my thoughts. There are other things I need to focus on, but I can’t. I just think of him, and the burning feeling of fear that’s settled in my stomach. It’s like no one else is seeing the world as I do. They don’t know what my mother is capable of.
I start to pull a tray off the counter, and then leap back when pain shoots up my fingers, watching helplessly as it crashes to the floor. Loud as a gunshot. The clatter fills the bakery that has otherwise been dead silent.
Renee rushes to the back, her eyes wide. “What happened?”
“I grabbed the wrong tray.” I stare down at the cupcakes. “That was one just out of the oven.”
We don’t have time for mistakes. We’re not going to finish—at all. The oven has been going since three in the morning. Renee and Benny have been here since just before four. But it’s not enough.
When I agreed to do this, Dean had promised help. And I get why he’s not here right now, but that doesn’t reduce the frustration I have over cupcakes.
And my mother. And Anthony who got drunk last night and was stumbling in as I was leaving this morning. That’s what he did after the news—rushed off to Mitch’s and drank until he could hardly function anymore. I don’t fully blame him. There’s a part of me that wants to do that too.
I cross to the prep sink and turn on the cold water, shoving my hand under it.
Renee follows after me. “We’re not going to finish.”
“I know.” I stare at the water dripping down my fingers and splattering on the bottom of the stainless-steel sink.
“Maybe we should just call it,” she says. “Make an excuse. Although you don’t really need to make an excuse up because you have one.”
She’s repeated this a few times already. She thinks I should cancel the festival. Let myself sink into that huge black pit that’s looming under my feet.
Well, maybe she didn’t say that exactly.
But I can’t let my mother take this from me too. I’ve worked so hard to belong to this town. To make a life for myself.
If I cancel the festival, then what would the Ms. Joannas say? I’d never be able to do something like this again. Portage has a long memory, and something like that would follow me forever. I’m finally pushing through the invisible line that makes everyone look at me with distrust.
I shake my head and turn off the water, my fingers tingling. “We make what we can. We’re already here, so we might as well keep going.”
A low knock on the backdoor makes both of us jump. I stare at it for a moment. She wouldn’t come here, would she? Renee is as wide-eyed as me. Benny is up front, boxing up the cupcakes that we have finished.
I walk toward the door, my heart pounding louder with each step. It’s an employee entrance, so there’s no window. Nothing to hint as to who’s outside.
What if it’s her?
I unlock the door, then yank it open quickly.
Dean.
My shoulders sag in relief, and then tighten again. Two opposing emotions fight. The desire to leap toward him, hold on to him, keep close to him no matter what happens. And the other—that knows I was right to send him away. He wears the same hoodie he usually pulls on when he walks me to the bakery in the mornings. He squints into the bright lights, the world behind him still dark and quiet.
Dev stands beside him, both of them with shadows under their eyes. Is that whiskey I smell?
Dean clears his throat. “I’d promised we’d help.” Whiskey or not, his words are even, and his eyes focus on me. Stunning blue, even with all the distance between us.
But he can’t be here.
“You should go.” The longer I stand across from him, the less control I’ll have. That’s the way it always is with Dean.
I start to close the door.
“Ella,” Renee snaps from behind me. “We need the help.”
I turn to face her, shaking my head. But she holds up her hands as if commanding me to stop. “I know you’re”—she glances past me—“worried. But it’s four in the morning. The entire world is asleep except for us. Are you really going to keep pushing this?”
“Let us help,” Dev says. “Or just me, if—”
The timer on the oven goes off, and Renee grabs gloves to pull out the trays. Then she stops. “Ella?”
Oh, no. No. I know that tone.
“One of the lightbulbs is out,” she continues. “So I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, but a screw on the light covering is missing.”
I close my eyes, still gripping the door. “You don’t see the screw?”
“No.” Her voices feels disembodied with my eyes squeezed shut.
That means it could be anywhere. In any one of the cupcakes.
With my eyes shut, I still know where every corner of this bakery is. The exact shade of yellow on the walls. The small space between oven and countertops. The edge of the bread case that snags my sweater. But right now I feel so lost. Like nothing fits anymore.
“Let us help.” Dean’s voice is close. He’s standing there—if I open my eyes, I’ll see him. I miss him so desperately, even though he’s standing right next to me. I nod and step away from the door, not opening my eyes until I’ve turned back around.
“Okay.” I cross to the counter. “Let’s start again.”
Dean
I focus all my intensity on the line of cupcakes in front of me. Something I never thought I’d be focusing on, but I’m not sure what else to do. Should I ask Ella about her mother?
I spent a portion of last night running through the news. Listening to the press conference. Pacing the deck with the desire to go after Ella right-fucking-now. And I would have, if it wasn’t for that word.
Anchor.
It keeps me across the room from her. Keeps my hands moving with a task. It’s not unlike sailing in that way. I fill liners, organize trays to go into the oven, pull them out and move them to Dev when they are cooled. Share a tense greeting with Benny. And an apology with Renee, which makes me feel like even more of an asshole. Like some abuser who thinks that apologies fix everything. But if this is the only way I can be here for Ella right now, then that’s what I’m going to do.
Finish the fucking cupcakes.
Unfortunately, dawn comes first, creeping through the front windows, and I know she’s going to tell me to go. But not before I make one last attempt. Because I’ll always make one last attempt for this woman. That’s what Dev made me realize last night over a handful of shots.
I stop just outside the door, Dev behind me in the alleyway. Ella holds the door open. She could slam it in my face at any moment. I don’t think she will—she’s too kind for that.
One of the reasons I love her.
“Let me stay with you.” My voice is raw—a tone I’ve never heard from myself before.
Sh
e tips her chin up to look at me. Exactly like how she does just before she kisses me. Except that’s not what’s going to happen now.
Dev clears his throat. “I’m gonna head back, Dean.”
“Yeah,” I say absently, but I’ll thank him for it later.
“Go with him,” she says quickly. A smudge of flour is on her chin, and my fingers itch to wipe it away.
Dev pauses, but I wave him on.
“I just want to say a few things.” Tension is already straining my shoulders. Maybe Ella’s right about all this. We need to keep away from each other until her mother’s found. But she still broke up with me—and there’s not even a real threat here. I mean, is her mother really going to make it four hundred miles without being picked up? Would she really come all this way? And for what?
Ella.
How far would I go for her? A hell of a lot farther than four hundred miles.
She shakes her head. “You need to go.” She starts to close the door, but I set my hand on it.
“I don’t understand how we got to this place,” I continue. “I thought you were starting to trust me.”
“I do trust you.” Her eyes are so damn earnest. “But you need to go.”
“Are we really broken up? Because it doesn’t feel like it when you look at me that way.”
My heart’s cracking right down the center. And the fucking confusion is making it worse.
“I…” She trails off, staring up at me, her eyes wide.
“Fucking tell me, Ella.” I fist my hand against the door. “Tell me what you want.”
She flinches back, and whatever crack had started in my heart shatters. I scared her. I take my hand from the door.
I don’t want her to see my anger.
And she doesn’t, because she swings the door closed.
I stand there, just fucking breathing.
Fuck. My hand whips out and smacks the door. The pain reverberates from my knuckles down to my wrist. But it’s not enough. I hit again, harder. This time leaving blood, and the pain shoots up to my elbow.
