by KL Donn
Her back straightens, and her blue eyes darken. I’d kill to know what’s going through her head right now. “Maybe I don’t want that.” She’s lying. She averts her gaze.
Brushing a hand across her silky blonde hair, I allow the soft strands to envelope my fingers as I gently tilt her head back, so she must look me in the eye. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. I’m not sure what’s happened to you, but I know you’re running.” Her eyes widen, and my suspicions are confirmed. “If you’ll just trust me, I can help you, baby.” Leaning down I rest my head against hers, waiting for her to say something. When she doesn’t, I coax her. “Open up to me. Tell me what’s happening. Trust me, blue eyes.”
Fuck do I want to kiss her. She’s so close that I can feel her sharp exhales of breath as panic attempts to subdue her. Gazing down at her lips, I lick my own and watch as her eyes follow my tongue.
“You’ll leave,” she finally murmurs as I hear Noah and the team trudging up the stairs.
“Never,” I vow. Nothing could drag me away from her.
Chapter 7
Thea
I don’t know how it happened. I barely remember giving my consent. One minute, I’m answering questions from Noah, and the next, I’m sitting on the spare bed in Kol’s house. The comfort I feel from his presence, his strength, has allowed my tired mind to ignore the panic threatening to consume me over being in a bed for the first time in years.
Kol had my bag packed before I even arrived at the apartment. He was fully in charge and ready to convince me to come home with him. He’s not pushing for anything I don’t want and seems to understand I need space.
Noah was suspicious of how vague my answers were. When I gave him my name, he raised an inquisitive eye at my last name. I think he knows it’s fake; nonetheless, he didn’t comment on it.
Which means, I really need to run.
Even if he doesn’t find out that Matthews is my great, great-grandmother’s maiden name and not my legal one, it’ll only be a matter of time before he knows for sure that it’s not real.
Kol is understanding yet dominating at the same time. He pushes me in a direct but gentle way. I get the feeling he could talk a rattler out of a bite.
Sitting in the middle of the bed, legs crossed, my bag still in my lap, I don’t know what to do. I shouldn’t be here. He could be in danger because of me, and the very last thing I want is to hurt Kol. He’s too good for someone like me.
But he’s a cop.
He’s prepared for things like this.
He’s also a cop.
He could side with the police back in Joplin. He could easily be convinced that I’m a lying runaway. I could be charged. I’m using a false name. I sort of faked my death.
I’ve made a mess.
“You’re thinking awfully hard over there?” Kol’s raspy voice startles me out of my thoughts.
“Sorry,” I mutter. This uncertainty is nearly more than I can bear.
“You ready to talk to me?” Walking into the room, he sits on the edge of the bed.
Picking at the frayed edges of my bag, I don’t know what to do here. I don’t know how to explain what has happened to me. Hell, I can barely say the words in my head, let alone out loud.
“Have you ever buried something so deep, so personal, that even saying the words in your own mind sends you into a tailspin you can’t find your way out of?” I can feel my body vibrating at the mere thought of vocalizing the words.
“Thea.” His voice is soft. “Please, look at me.” I shake my head, unable to meet his gaze. I can’t stand the thought of him looking at me with any kind of pity or sorrow. “I can’t pretend to know what you’ve gone through, what you are still obviously going through, but Thea…” I peek up through the cascade of my hair. “Dammit, Thea, I can be here for you. I can be the strength that you need; I can be your everything if you just talk to me.”
My tears slip free because against my better judgment, I do trust him. More than I’ve ever trusted anyone else in my life. Kol has an innate goodness about him that he wears as proudly as his badge.
“I do trust you, Kol,” I confess.
“Good.”
“But I can’t tell you.” The words simply won’t come, and I don’t know how to make him understand.
“Dammit, Thea,” he growls and stands, pacing around the room. I watch him run his fingers angrily through his hair, and I want him to hold me again. I was at ease when he did that, but I have no idea how to ask for it. “I know Matthews isn’t your last name.”
My entire body freezes, and I’m left in shock. My chest tightens with the inability to breathe. White noise blocks out anything else he says as stars dance in front of my eyes.
“Thea?” I can hear him say my name, but I can’t respond. My voice is lost.
Losing strength, my body slumps over to the side, and I feel weak. Memories play over in my mind of when I tried to get help.
The failed investigations.
The suicide attempts.
The terror of having to stay in that house for a minute longer.
“You were a bad girl, Thea. Telling on me when we both know you enjoyed it.” Richard’s voice in my ear is sickening. “This”—he grabs my arm with the blood sluggishly dripping off my fingers—“was stupid and selfish. How do you think your mother would feel?”
“I don’t care,” I whisper hoarsely. My voice having lost any power. I didn’t cut deep enough. Richard came home early and found me in the tub. Naked, bruised, broken, and bleeding. He doesn’t comprehend the pain he’s caused me. The absolute disgust that rolls through my body because of him. Nor would he even care.
“This is weak, even for you, Thea. But it’s okay, I’m here to take care of you now.” I want to vomit as he throws me on the bed, face first, and climbs on from behind. The police didn’t believe me. They thought I was lying.
Richard convinced them I was only looking for attention. I feel the heat of his naked flesh trying to penetrate me, and my mind shuttles me to another place. One where I’m loved, protected, left alone.
I’m taken away to where when I say no, it means no.
I don’t even beg anymore. He only laughs. He takes pleasure in my agony, so I’ve learned to keep it to myself. It’s my one rebellion. It angers him when he doesn’t get the response from me that he craves. The reason he assaults me.
Rapes me.
Kol
* * *
I’ve been scared plenty of times in my life. When my parents died, and we had Ember to raise. Being shot at. Worry that Arsen may get killed on the job. Ember being hurt for being too trusting.
There’s plenty of fear to go around.
But never like this. Never have I witnessed something as agonizing as watching Thea shut down and getting so lost in her mind that she’s taken back to whatever hell she escaped. And I can’t pull her out of it.
Her tears flow in steady streams, her eyes are glossed over like she’s on drugs, but I know that’s not the case. Her body trembles, and no matter what I do, I can’t help her.
“Kol!” I hear Ember’s voice downstairs and check the time. She’s going to be pissed that I knew Thea lived here. “Kol, what are you- Thea? Kol! What’s wrong with her?” Rushing to her friend’s side, Ember drops to her knees in front of the woman I want to call my own and brushes the hair back from her face.
“What happened to her?” Em stares up at me like I’ve got all the answers.
“I have no fucking idea, Em.” I wish I did.
“You’re going to find out, though, right?” Not once in my life have I ever worried about letting my baby sister down, but right now, I don’t know how to answer her.
“I’m going to try, Em.”
“How long has she been like this?” She’s wiping Thea’s tears with a Kleenex as her mind pushes her own worry to the back and the caretaker in her takes over.
“Not long. A few minutes maybe. She just dropped over.”
Narrowing her
eyes on me, Em asks, “What did you do?”
“I tried to get her to open up to me, so I can help her. Someone broke into her apartment tonight. I told her I knew Matthews wasn’t her last name.” Gripping the back of my neck, I struggle not to pull my girl into my arms and just hold her. All I want to do is take away her demons. Fight for her to be free of whatever has taken her hostage.
“Of course, it’s not,” Ember mumbles.
“What does that mean?” If she knew…
“It’s Andrews. I saw her I.D. once by accident. I’d hoped she’d want to tell me some day.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Em? You couldn’t have informed me of this when you told me she left?” I could have fucking found her!
“I didn’t want her to leave for good. I was hoping she would come back.” Sadness rings in her tone, and I can’t even be mad. “Will you go run a cool shower. Maybe it’ll shock her into coming back to life.”
“Sure.” Leaving the room, I head to my master bathroom instead of the guest one. I want her to have her own space and still be surrounded by all my things. I want Thea to stay and feel welcome.
“Kol, you’re gonna have to pick her up,” Ember calls from the spare room. After running the water at room temperature, I go back and pick her up. Cradling Thea to my chest feels right. If only it weren’t for all the wrong reasons.
“Get her stuff to my room, Em. I’ll take care of her.” I’m not sure I could hand over the reins of her care to my sister even if I wanted to. I need to be the one to do this. I have a driving desire to make sure Thea knows she can count on me.
“Sure, Kol.” Em’s voice sounds unsure, but I carry on to the bathroom. After kicking off my shoes, I step into the water with Thea’s head going under the cool spray first.
“Come back to me, baby,” I plead with her quietly, not wanting to startle her. When she gasps, I step back out of the water and allow her a moment to breathe as I wait for her eyes to clear.
“Kol?” Her voice is half whine, half cry.
“I’ve got you, Thea. I’ll always have you.” I whisper the words to her, watching her face for distress.
“It’s cold,” she grumbles, cuddling into my chest.
Leaning forward, I turn the heat up on the tap and then slide down the wall with Thea sitting in my lap so that my legs and her back take the brunt of the spray.
Her fists grip my shirt as she hides her face, but I know I can’t let her check out again. Not anymore. “Where did you go?”
“A nightmare.” She hiccups into my chest. “He always hurts me.”
Swallowing my emotions down, I struggle to remain still. “Who, Thea? Who hurts you?”
“My step-father.” The words are so silent I almost miss them.
Step-father.
I’ll kill him.
I hold Thea until she falls asleep in my arms. She isn’t restless; she isn’t shivering. I hope she’s found a small amount of peace from me. But I’m a raging mess inside. I want nothing more than to hunt this man down and beat him until he confesses.
After drying Thea off and changing her into one of my shirts, I leave her in the care of Ember as I make a call to Noah.
“Did you get any useable prints?” I ask before he’s said hello.
“Hey, man, I was just about to call you. The only prints are yours and hers. And I was right, Matthews isn’t her last name. It’s–”
“Andrews, I know.” I interrupt before he can have his ah-ha moment.
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” he gripes.
“Because Ember only told me a little bit ago. No other prints?”
“None that I could find. But man, Thea’s in trouble.”
“How?” I don’t see it.
“She went missing four years ago at sixteen. Parents thought she jumped off a bridge after her bag and coat were found in the river. She had two suicide attempts after accusing her step-dad, Richard Dane, of multiple counts of rape.” My blood runs cold. Suspecting it and hearing it said aloud are two very different things.
“Stop. I don’t need to hear the rest to know he convinced the police she was the problem.” Noah says nothing, and I’m hoping my partner is smarter than those other cops and not believing this shit. “Come over as soon as you can. You need to take a look at Thea. She’s a fucking mess, man. Whatever this guy has done, he’s left her in fear of her life.”
“On my way.” After hanging up, I order pizza I don’t feel like eating and put on coffee I know we’re going to need. If I want Thea to stop running and be able to move on from her past, to help her heal, I recognize that I need to take charge and show her that Noah and I are on her side. That we’ll have the entire department on her side.
Chapter 8
Thea
Eyes popping open, I struggle to acclimate to where I am. I can’t catch my bearings as I realize I’m in a bed in a room that isn’t my apartment. Then I remember my place was broken into, violated, destroyed by anger and fueled by hate. I remember my life has been thrown into another whirlwind where I’m left to pick up pieces that I’m not certain I want to.
Flipping back the blankets that are covering me, I see the moon shining through the thin curtains that cover the window and gravitate towards it. The night is clear, and I desperately want to believe that what I’m recalling in my mind from the past few hours is nothing more than a bad dream.
But it’s not. I feel it in my bones.
Kol witnessed my breakdown.
Ember realizes I’m back.
And my secrets have been revealed.
Why Kol thought to keep me here instead of admitting me into some psych ward is beyond me. Counting the few stars I see in the sky, I wonder which one my dad is. Which one is watching as I fail at the life I was given? I’ve spent so many years wondering if he’d have been proud of me for trying to find justice for myself or if he’d have gotten it for me himself.
I’ve always wanted to evolve into a woman he could have been proud to call his own blood. Gazing around me, I feel certain he wouldn’t be pleased with the cowering woman I’ve become. I split when things get too hard, when I make connections.
I run.
It’s what I do best.
And now? With my secret out, the desire to do so again is stronger than ever before. I don’t know how I’ll face Kol and Ember now that they know who and what I am.
“Hey, you’re up.” Ember’s soft voice calls from behind me.
“I should leave,” I say absent-mindedly, still staring at the sky.
I can feel her presence as she walks closer to me. Standing next to me, Ember doesn’t try to touch me. She’s always respected my need for space. “You left once, Thea. Isn’t it time to stay and fight? Whether you realize it or not, you have family here.”
“Family has caused me nothing but anguish my whole life,” I respond. The idea of having more family is terrifying.
“I don’t know what happened to you, Thea, but I’m here if you need me. Silently, if that’s what’s necessary.” I want that. A friend. A true friend. Which is what Ember has always been if I think about it.
“We were poor. When I was younger.” The warmth and support Ember emits helps to ease out some of the words. “I don’t remember my dad. I can sometimes feel the memory of his love. I can imagine a smile or laugh. But his face? I don’t recollect that. Or the way he hugged. I don’t know what he smelled like. Sometimes I imagine cedar because I grew up around cedar trees, but I don’t really know.” It hurts to think about just how much I don’t know about my father.
“I can’t imagine,” Ember whispers. As we stand in silence, Em is Em, and even though she doesn’t push my boundaries, she has her ways of getting to me, and as I feel her pinky wrap around mine, the walls start crumbling down around my mind and heart.
“I used to dream of a life with Dad in it. I would dream that even though he were dead, he would come back as a new father. My mom would fall madly in love, and we’d be a family a
gain.” My stress bleeds out in my words.
“I would dream that my mom and dad came back after they first passed away,” Ember whispers. Her own pain makes me look at her.
“Your parents were wonderful. I’ve always been able to feel their love in the stories you’ve told me.” Looking away, she nods, and I understand what she’s feeling because I live with it every day. “When he first came into our lives, I was excited. I wanted to get to know him. I wanted him to like me. To love me the way I imagined my father used to.”
Em’s entire hand grips mine, now, and I can feel how tense she is. Even without me saying it, she knows what’s coming. “They married quickly, and at first, things were okay. Richard had always been cold and distant until one day he wasn’t.”
“Thea…”
“I was always a dreamer. I believed in love at first sight, fairytales, and never-ending happiness. I believed that one day I would find a man who would love me with his entire being, and because of that love, I would give him my most precious gift.”
“Thea, don’t.” Ember’s crying more than I am, and she knows the words will be just as hard for her to hear as they will be for me to say.
“It’s okay, Ember. I’m unable to say them any more than you want to hear them. I don’t do love anymore, Em, and it’s all his fault. He stole from me what was meant for the man who I would be with forever, and now, I have nothing.”
“That’s not true!” she insists, turning to face me.
“It is, and you need to understand why I have to disappear. Why Kol can’t have me. Once he knows the truth, he’ll want nothing to do with me anyways, and I can’t handle his rejection. Not him.” I wish I were strong enough to fight for us, but I’m not sure I am.
