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“What do they mean, Phoebe?” The words caught in my throat. The distance between us grew to a point that scared the hell out of me.
“My mother used to wear them to church. When he got mad, my father would choke her with them.”
I heard something snap. Almost like when Zane and I would skip class during senior year and get high in the woods behind the high school. The walk to the “high rock,” as we called it, was laden with fallen branches and stumps. Everywhere I walked I heard a snap of a twig.
That was the sound I heard in my head as I broke.
Months of anger, fear, and held back emotions erupted as I ripped the scarf out of her hands and threw it to the ground. “Now? You’re sharing this now? Iris has been gone almost four days! What the fuck were you thinking? Are you even thinking?” Phoebe backed away from me until she hit the wall. Despite a voice in my head telling me to stop, I kept on. “Talk to me, goddamn it!”
One step away from her, a hard chest filled my line of vision. “Back off, Bale,” Hough commanded in a low voice. “I know you’re upset, but you’re out of line.”
With my heartbeat slowing, I surveyed my surroundings. Phoebe, plastered against the wall, her eyes full of terror, Hough in front of me, protecting her, and every officer and agent in the room with their hands on their gun…including Everson.
Jesus. Who am I?
Stumbling backward, I mumbled a pathetic apology and headed for the one place I could find solace.
***
Three knocks preceded Jaxon Hough barging into my sanctuary.
I’d been in Iris’s nursery for over an hour before anyone dared to bother me. Sitting in her rocking chair soothed me. It connected me to her. I could feel her presence, which confirmed what I felt in my soul.
My daughter was alive. If she wasn’t, I’d feel it in this room.
He closed the door and leaned against it. Neither one of us spoke as I continued rocking.
“What happened out there, Bale?”
I was too exhausted to fight. “I don’t know.”
“It’s not the time to fall apart. She needs you.”
“You said it yourself. I’m out of control. I’m the last thing she needs.”
“I said you were out of line…not control.” He moved farther into the room and rested his arms on Iris’s white crib. “I was in New York when shit went down with Tanna, remember? I’ve seen you two against obstacles. When you fight together you’re an unstoppable force. Apart like this…at each other’s throats?” He ran his fingers along the crib. “The shit doesn’t work. The bad guys win.”
“Maybe there are just too many bad guys to fight,” I said, staring straight ahead.
“You don’t believe that.”
I finally met his stare. “What good am I to Phoebe if I turn into one of the bad guys we’re fighting, Hough?”
“You save each other, Bale. You’d never hurt her. She knows that.”
I stopped rocking. “I’m not so sure.”
The moment I met Phoebe, she turned my world upside down. The scent of her coconut shampoo did me in. After my friend, Billy, died in a car accident meant for me, I swore I was toxic. Isolating myself ensured I’d never subject my poison on someone else I loved.
One chance meeting in a crowded bar in New York City blew that to hell. From that moment on, I spent months focused on having her…protecting her…reclaiming her. We’d fought my stalker and came out stronger. But somehow, this had beaten us. This was bigger and stronger than what we’d built.
I’d already resigned myself to what I had to do. Fighting a monster I couldn’t see was hard enough. Putting Phoebe through fighting two of us was a choice I wouldn’t force her to make.
So, I made it for both of us.
“Hough,” I sighed, rising from the rocker. “I need you to promise me something.”
He glanced up from the empty crib. “Yeah?”
“Stay here. Take care of Phoebe. Watch over her and be there for her.”
He straightened and stared at me intently. “Do it yourself.”
“I can’t,” I said as my voice broke. “I’m moving to Zane’s.”
I left him speechless in the nursery as I walked out to pack.
