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She grinned, a hollow, watery approximation of her usual smile, before looking away.
“Why won’t you tell me what made you leave?” I asked, leaning forward and pitching my voice low. She had eaten maybe a single bite of pasta in all the time she’d been sitting up there, not talking to me.
“Why didn’t you ask me, instead of just calling me an idiot?”
“I’m sorry about that, I really am. But how do you think it felt to hear you tear out of the driveway without a warning, after everything that’s been said and done?”
I knew she was thinking of the night before, just like I was, and she blinked and looked away.
“Do you know what I felt when you were gone?” I asked. It was an effort to keep my voice from shaking in my anger and the memory of how much that had hurt. “Do you know what it was like to see you leave?”
She looked back at me, her eyes filling with tears, and this time she didn’t bother to blink them back. I reached over and wiped the tear away.
“Why won’t you tell me?” I asked quietly. “You’ve told me almost everything else. Can’t you trust me with this?”
She pulled away from me, getting down and walking toward the front of the room, near the door as she thrust her hands into her hair.
“Can you trust that I will tell you? I just need to work some of it out on my own, first, the same way you’re still working on telling me that thing that eats away at you every day.”
I felt the blood leave my face, finding it hard to believe that she would compare whatever it was to what I was struggling through.
But she was still giving me the space to work it out on my own. I could do the same for her.
I opened my mouth, prepared to give way and pull her into my arms. I was exhausted by the shit day, and I wanted to hold her as we fell asleep the way I’d gotten used to doing.
Before I could get a word out, the door slammed open, and I had a split second to look over before I heard an all-too-familiar, deafening bang. I ducked as the bullet whizzed past me, rolling behind the island as I heard the granite crack as another few bullets ricocheted off.
I heard Macy scream my name, and I crawled out from around the side of the island, refusing to think of the last time I’d heard gunfire. As I came around the edge of the counter, I felt the heat of the bullet as it whizzed past my head, this time just missing my scalp. Bucky was snarling and barking, trying to get at the gunman. I screamed his name and he came to me, sniffing me all over to make sure I was good. I couldn’t let him get hurt. I told him to stay.
I looked up to see someone in a black ski mask, holding a familiar type of Glock, heaving Macy over his shoulder, and all I could think of was the sound of her screams as he took her out to the old, grey car parked outside.
Not thinking about the gun or the fact that this piece of shit was still firing off anywhere he could think of, I ran after him, grabbing my keys from the table and taking a second to curse myself for giving up my sidearm.
I ducked as he fired another bullet at me out of his car window, but even more terrifying than that was the fact that Macy had stopped screaming. I tore after him down the road, Bucky riding shotgun, not thinking of the dark canyons we were driving past or the fact that I’d probably left the door open.
Suddenly, the lights of the other car turned off, and I knew a moment of sheer, blinding panic as I thought of Macy in that car, being driven by a psychopath, before I completely lost them in the dark. I pulled off the road and parked, taking a second.
“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck!” I screamed, slamming my hands against the steering wheel. How could this have happened?
I couldn’t think of anything but getting Macy back, and I also knew that there was no way I’d be able to do that on my own.
I put the car back in drive and made a beeline for Hank’s, barely registering the fact that I was barefoot, and I’d forgotten my wallet and everything else at home. By the time I pulled up, I was just shy of hyperventilating as I pounded on the door.
Soft, padding steps came up, and I was surprised, somehow, to see Nadine looking up at me. “Dillon? What’s wrong?”
“Hi, Nadine. I’m sorry about the time, but I have to talk to Hank. Right now.”
“Honey, come in. Have something to—”
“I don’t have time,” I almost yelled. “I just need your husband.”
“Whoa, Dillon,” he said as he came out, looking over at me with anger and frustration that quickly turned to worry. “What’s going on?”
“He found us,” I managed to get out. “I don’t know how, but he found us, and he just took her.”
“What do you mean he found you?” he asked.
“What’s going on? Who are we talking about?” Nadine asked, looking from one of us to the other.
