* * * * *
Come on. Come on.
Dammit!
I fumbled for the nineteenth time with the cuff. I sat on the kitchen floor with the smallest fillet knife I could find. My back hurt from curling over my leg, and the marble tiles beneath me had flattened my ass to a pancake.
And I still hadn’t left.
The now sparkling kitchen didn’t own any key or tool to free me. No scissors were sharp enough to hack through the hardened leather. No oil—even if there had been any in the cupboards—could help me wriggle my way out of the tight binding.
The padlock was the only chance I had at getting free, and so far, it refused to relinquish me. The frustrating thing was intricate. A hard nugget of metal with just a tiny pinhole instead of a key slot—and no matter how hard I pulled, poked, or twisted, the metal stayed put.
I’d tried stabbing it, jiggling it, even went as far as placing the blade against my leg and trying to saw the thick, impenetrable leather with the knife.
However, unless he gave me the strange key or I somehow managed to use the wood ax from the shed to get free (without hacking off my own leg), it was a dead end.
Fine.
I’ll just have to climb with a heavy chain tucked into my waistband.
Not the safest, but beggars couldn’t be choosers—wasn’t that the saying? Not a very nice one if you asked me.
Standing, I placed the knife on the clean countertop and readjusted the four packets of instant pasta I’d left as a peace offering for eating his vegetables. Beside those packets were a mountain of chocolate bars, fruit roll-ups, muesli bars, and the rest of the painkillers, along with the empty second backpack that he’d taken from my Jeep.
I hadn’t left myself a lot of supplies to climb and hike home, but my guilt wouldn’t let me leave without trying to apologize.
Okay...this is it. Are you sure you want to do this?
I had no answer, but I believed this was the best thing...for both of us. He’d get his asylum back; I’d go home to my house. We would both move on and forget.
Inhaling hard, ignoring the prickle behind my eyes, I turned and headed toward my already packed backpack waiting by the door.
“I’m not lonely while you’re here. That’s why you can’t go. Why you can never go. You’re mine.”
Argh, what if I was making a mistake?
Gem...stop it.
You’ve lost sight of reality. This man kidnapped you. He sexually forced you. He—
Yeah, yeah. I know, I know.
I sniffed and balled my hands.
But he also looked at me for help. Trusted me in his dreams. Ate from my hands. Moaned at my touch.
Gah, stop it!
Time to go.
With jittery fingers, I pulled the straps and heaved the weight onto my back. Liquid threatened to slip from my traitorous eyes as I buckled and cinched my belongings into position.
Don’t you dare.
Do not cry over this.
You tried.
You did more than most.
It’s obvious you can’t stay.
I gritted my teeth. My jumping thoughts were right. Josh deserved to know I was alive. I’d been missing for three weeks. If he wasn’t so young, I’d fear he’d have died from a heart attack from all the stress. My mother would be panicked, but thanks to Dad’s death, she was sort of numb to disasters these days. However, I still owed her a hug and an assurance that my ‘crazy career climbing pebbles,’ as she called it, hadn’t cost me my life as she’d morbidly predicted.
I’d found a man in a valley.
I’d tried to help that man.
I’d developed feelings for that man.
I was turning my back on his well-being to protect mine.
I was selfless and selfish.
I was being a good daughter but a horrible friend.
A considerate sister but a disgraceful nurse.
Life was never easy.
Planting my hand firmly on the door handle, I yanked it wide. Starlight and midnight flooded into the kitchen, embracing my dash into its inkiness.
Unlike the last time I ran, Kas wouldn’t be able to chase after me.
There would be no sex in a thunderstorm. No talking in a Jeep. No falling against all common sense in the rain.
You know you have no choice, Gem.
I smiled wryly. Unless my choice included forsaking my family and choosing Kas for my ever after, I was right.
There was no choice to make.
It’s okay.
He’ll be fine.
With a final hitched inhale, I stepped into the night.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“GOING SOMEWHERE?” I COUGHED, slouching against the doorframe leading into the kitchen.
She froze, spinning around and stumbling with the heavy inertia strapped to her back. “What are...you were...how are you awake?”
I swallowed the dryness in my mouth. She didn’t need to know I’d woken as if a bullet had been fired into my brain. I’d shot awake to an empty room with ghosts from another time haunting the pages of menacing books, and I’d known.
How I’d known, I couldn’t explain. Perhaps it was the withdrawal of her presence, or her choice to go where I couldn’t follow. It could’ve been her backpack missing from its usual spot in the corner. Or it could’ve been the missing piece of my goddamn miserable heart.
Any of those reasons could’ve woken me in a cold sweat.
But she didn’t deserve answers like that. Answers that made me vulnerable because there she was, foot out the door, her mind already climbing the cliff to get as far away from me as possible.
Yet another betrayal.
Another whip of torture she just loved to wield.
Choosing a derogatory and impolite answer to her convoluted question, I rubbed my forearm above the splint she’d strapped to my broken arm. My voice was soft but lethal, unable to fully hide the rage burning in my veins. “I needed to piss.” Looking up through my lashes, I added, “Funny that. For the first time since you pushed me off that cliff, I was strong enough to climb out of bed without you carrying me to the bathroom, and what do I find? You skipping out on your duties.”
She shivered, her hands fumbling at the bag buckles around her waist. Excuses darted over her face. Reasons I fully understood and even commiserated with. We both knew she had a life outside of my valley. We both knew it would be prudent she returned to it before I either smothered her in my desperation or my rage.
She wasn’t safe with me.
And I wasn’t safe with her.
Too fucking bad she isn’t going anywhere.
“Well?” I clenched my jaw and pushed off from my doorway crutch. My head sloshed, and the sickness that seemed to have taken up residency in my belly roiled. With deliberate, careful steps, I crossed from my side of the kitchen to hers. “Are you going to share why you were just going to vanish? To leave without so much as a goodbye?”
She gulped. “I, eh...” Her shoulders swooped back with courage, but she couldn’t fight her natural instincts to avoid me. As she inched backward, her feet left Fables altogether, stepping into daisies and crushing their petals just like she’d crushed me. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“Is it now?” I cocked my head, my eyesight flickering. My nostrils flared as I halted in the middle of the kitchen, swaying with damn vertigo. Glancing at the mess-free countertop, I stilled. Huh. “You cleaned up.”