Page 45 of Enter if you Dare: Part Three

“Best chase ever,” Noa declares once we are all dressed and heading back to the house. We are not the only ones out; we pass Kayla and her men once we reach the residential area. Vero and Noa high-five, and we keep walking.

If this is how the rest of my life looks, I will live out my days a happy woman. Once we are back at the house, Cave takes us into the shower one by one and washes us. He makes sure we are clean before we fall into bed and curl up together beneath the covers.

Cave

I was built from necessity.

I wore a face that was not mine so the real one could survive,

I burned what I loved because it was already gone,

I learned some things do not burn,

I learned some things wait.

I put my hands in the earth, and I began again.

Seth Fairchild does not look like he belongs on the island; he is far too clean-cut. He belongs on the mainland. How he has a past with Nixie is beyond me, but stranger things have happened. I ended up with Valli, and god knows I don’t deserve her.

Seth sat in the lounge across from me for twenty minutes before he relaxed. He holds his notepad and smiles at me, while I wait for the questions I know will come. That is the reason he is here, after all. I have allowed him into my home because I like how I’m feeling now. I don’t miss the anger bubbling beneath the surface every second of every day. It’s still there at times, but nowhere near as often as before.

“You look different,” he says.

I nod. I find answering him in some way makes him move on, and the quicker he goes through the motions, the quicker he leaves.

“The Scarecrow . . . is he still there?” he asks, something he has never done before.

It’s a question I have been asked since being home, mostly by Noa. Valli mentioned it once but quickly dropped it.

“Still here,” I sign, because Cipher opened his big mouth when Seth arrived, telling him I could communicate through sign language. If I knew it would be this big of a deal, I never would have revealed that secret. I quite like nodding and one-word answers; it feels safer.

“But under control?” he asks.

“He is mine, not the other way around.”

Seth is quiet for a moment while he writes something in his notepad, then he smiles. He writes something else, then rips the page from his book and hands it to me.

You don’t need to see me again unless you want to.

I look at the words, and then at Seth, who holds my gaze. The rest of the session goes much the same way; he is happy with my nods and one-word answers, though occasionally he asks me to sign my answers.

He stands when the session is over, and we shake hands. It’s a weird feeling being so, might I say, civilized. This is new to me, but I am doing this for Valli, Cipher, and Noa. They deserve someone they can be proud of.

Seth picks up his briefcase, slips his notepad inside, and clips it back up. We walk outside together, where the island is fairly quiet at this time of day. As we get closer to Nixie’s office, voices filter toward us. I recognize Nixie’s firm tone straight away, and the other one is Evan, who came to the island with Seth under the pretense of handing over my final discharge letters.

They are both standing in front of her office, Nixie with her arms crossed and her chin tilted up, a sure sign she is not budging on whatever they are talking about. Evan has his hands at his sides, but then he reaches out and puts his hand on her. She rips her arm back, and something inside me clicks.

I cross the path, and when I reach him, my hand closes around his throat.

Evan goes completely still—he is no idiot, but he must be stupid if he thinks he can put his hands on her. Nixie is my family; no one touches her.

His hand comes up and grabs at my wrist, but this isn’t my first rodeo. He won’t be able to remove my hand unless I release it. He can’t touch her, not if she doesn’t want him to.

I lean in. “What happens to the hand that touches what the Scarecrow protects?”

“Cave.” I go still at the sound of her voice. “Cave, look at me.”

I stare at Evan for a moment, but I can see her in my periphery. She has her hands on her hips, and she looks mad.