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Turning from her old room, I checked the one next to it, only to find it empty too. Then I dragged my tired ass down two flights of stairs, into the basement where I still had my old bed. I’d barely gotten my pants and shirt off before I fell atop the mattress. Didn’t even bother pulling the blankets over me, even though it was cold.
It was easier this way. Easier to fall asleep. Easier to get up. Easier to move in an emergency.
The last thing I did before falling asleep was check my phone and plug it in. No responses from anyone. No responses from her.
Where are you, Kelly? Where’d you disappear to this time?
She visited me in my dreams. Laughed and cried and told me I was a fool.
And I was a fool.
A fool for not doing more.
A fool for scouring Chicago for someone who didn’t want to be found.
But sometimes, those foolish choices led to results.
Didn’t need to look into the mirror at the foot of the bed to know something was off. Didn’t need the early morning sunlight to shine through my boarded-up windows to see through the dim light spilling from the open bathroom door.
A single glance at that mirror showed me exactly how much of a fool I was.
And exactly what I hadn’t even thought to hope for until I’d shut my eyes.
Couldn’t miss those curves. Couldn’t miss that shock of wild, crazy hair.
Couldn’t miss the way my heart thumped loudly in my chest, or the feel of cold steel as I closed my fingers on the hand I’d kept tucked under my pillow.
Sucking in a silent breath, I readied myself to move.
And then I did.
Before she could wake up, before she could run away, I’d flipped over and slapped a pair of handcuffs to her wrist. Had just enough time, just a split second, to secure her to the headboard before she woke. Before she flailed her hands and kicked her feet and did more than graze my upper thigh as I jumped off my own fuckin’ bed.
In that dim bathroom light, a light I hadn’t turned on, a light I’d never have left on because the fuckin’ thing was too bright, I could see her frantic eyes searching for a threat.
The way she did every time she woke up.
When they lit on me, her eyes flared. She sucked in a deep breath, her chest heaving upward before she let it out. Let it out with all the wild, crazy energy, until she was as calm as the moment I’d scooped her up in my arms on that boat and she’d curled into my chest.
“Lee.” Her voice was groggy. Sounded like mine surely would if I could bring myself to talk. Kelly righted herself on the bed, then reached for the light switch on the wall beside the headboard. She snatched a pack of smokes off the bedside table, then shook the package until one slid out. “The least you could do is let me have a cigarette first.”
17
KELLY
That man is a beast.
That was the first fully formed thought I had. After the terror of being startled awake. After my body flailed and my brain rebelled and, for one brief moment, I was back on that boat.
A beast.
Tall and impossibly broad, Lee stood at the foot of the bed, his hand grasping at his upper thigh as his chest heaved like he’d just run a mile. And a new kind of terror whistled through me, as my eyes roved over his nearly naked body.
In all the months he’d been watching over me, those times I’d climbed into his bed beside him in the middle of the night, only to wake before he could, never once had I seen so much of him.
He’d always been dressed. He’d always been covered. I’d never seen more than his calves beneath his shorts and the wide expanse of his biceps that peeked out beneath the arms of his T-shirts. This was… too much.
He would break me. He would crush me. He would smother the life out of me as he hurt me in ways I couldn’t fathom. He would…
