I stumble back as Kendrick loses the grip on the leash. Blood pools along the wound and soaks his shirt. I bite my tongue from lashing out and hold my hand to my arm, then I do the only thing I’ve been waiting to do for far too long.
I run.
I’ll never luck back. I don’t care if the fucker dies in the middle of the road, holding grapes. Tears blur my eyes, and my legs pump as I sprint in the direction of the highway. I want Sebastian, but I have no idea where he is. I have a feeling I made him up in my head, and that means I am losing my mind.
My shoes hurt my feet. Blisters are forming from the leather rubbing against my skin as I run uphill, blood flowing between my fingers as I put pressure on the wound. The hill is too much. I haven’t been outside in too long, nor have I worked out. My body is weak.
I am weak.
I get lightheaded and as I begin to fall, someone tackles me, pulling me safe into their arms as they get me out of harm’s way.
For the briefest of moments, I think it’s Kendrick, but then my body warms, and my heart thumps in a way that only happens when Sebastian is around.
“Look at me, baby. Look at me, Gabriella.” His hands cup my face, but I am too afraid to open my eyes because if he really isn’t there, what am I going to do? I can’t live with the despair that he isn’t in front of me, touching me, holding me, talking to me. I’ve missed him so much, and life has been hell for so long.
I don’t think the world has any kindness for me left.
“Come on, baby. Look at me, please, god, please let me look at you,” he urges.
With a deep breath, my eyes flutter open and when I see the ocean depths staring back at me; I know it means I’ve died and gone to heaven. I sob and reach for his face, bloody hand and all, smearing it across his cheek.
“Sebastian? Is it really you?” I pinch his face, rubbing my hands over his cheeks. His rough, coarse beard tickles my palm. “Sebastian!” The tears don’t stop. I don’t think they will ever stop. I am no longer in pain. I am healing. “It’s really you. Oh my god, it’s you.”
“It’s me, baby. It’s me, Gabriella. I never thought I’d see you again. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you’re here, right under my thumb this entire time.” He lays his forehead against me, and I want him to kiss me, to finally put us out of our misery, but he holds onto me instead.
And he feels good.
Sebastian is like waking up from a nightmare in a coma. He is relief, medicine, and heaven all at once, and I never want to know what it is like to lose myself like that again.
“I smelled you,” he says, burying his nose in my neck and inhaling like he did years before. “I had to look for you. Something told me it was you, and you’re here.”
“You smelled me?”
“Okay, sorry to break up the eternal lovefest, but we really need to get going.” His friend interrupts us and grabs Sebastian by the back of the shirt collar, and Sebastian’s arms are still around me, so I come with him. “Not good, not good. We cannot be seen here when the cops arrive.”
“Did you kill him? Did Kendrick see you?”
“No and no, Sebastian. God, what am I? An amateur?” the man says as we run to a vehicle.
Well, they run. I’m in Sebastian’s arms.
Sebastian opens the back door of the heavy-duty black truck and slides us inside. “Fuck, baby. You’re bleeding,” he says, putting pressure on the wound. “It’s just a graze. You’ll be okay.”
“I can die now and be happy because I know I’m not in the hands of a monster,” I admit, reaching my hand up to touch his face. I can’t help it. I still think I’m dreaming because there is no way this man is real. He looks so different, but I’d know those eyes from anywhere.
Sebastian is real.
His jaw is sharper, more defined, and he seems like a man who hardened to the world, but when he looks at me, every sharp feature of his face relaxes, and nothing but love stares at me. His hand brushes over the bruise on my cheek, and his jaw flexes from clamping his teeth together. He might have thought I missed it, but I saw the tear leaking out of the corner of his eye before he wiped it on his shirt.
He gathers me tighter in his arms and pulls me to his chest. My nose presses against the steady beat of his heart, and I weep with joy. His shoulders slightly shake and I know he’s crying too. I feel the wet tears on my neck. “God, I never thought I’d see you again, Gabby. I thought I had lost you forever. I looked so long. I never gave up. I could never give you up.”
“I thought you had,” I admit, rubbing my wet face against his shirt. “I wanted you to. I convinced myself you were married with kids, settling down and happy.”
“I could never want those things because the only person I ever imagined myself with is you, Gabby. You know that. I could never do anything because of my brother—”
“And he won’t be the last of your worries,” the guy in the driver’s seat says. “I didn’t kill him. I have a feeling he won’t let her go so easily, but he doesn’t know it’s you either. He didn’t see us.”
“He’s right, Sebastian.” I lean back and stare into the eyes I fell in love with so long ago, but I knew my fate belongs to someone else. “You are better off giving me back. He will stop at nothing until he has me again.”
“And I will stop at nothing to make sure he never lays a hand on you again,” Sebastian says, his thumb grazing over the bruise on my neck. I don’t know if it’s from the collar or the earlier chokehold, but it’s sensitive. “I should have found you earlier, and maybe none of this would have happened to you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t blame yourself. I’m the one who said to let me go, remember?”
“I wanted to kick your ass for that,” his lips curl into a playful grin. His lashes are wet and stuck together, pointed black spears framing his eyes, and the dark color against the light blue make his eyes pop even more. “I tried like hell to bang down that glass.”
“I know,” my eyes well with the memory. “I heard it.”
“You didn’t turn around,” he points out, inhaling the scent on my neck again. “It killed me.”
“I didn’t want to risk your life.”
“You’re worth it,” he admits.
I shake my head, remembering all the things Kendrick told me over the years. “No, I’m not worth it. No one would be happy with me. I’m useless, and I don’t behave. I deserve the punishment I get.” The words leave me like a song playing on a record player. They are automatic and monotone. Kendrick has gotten what he wanted after all.
He broke me.
A harsh tug of my neck nearly has me falling to the ground.
“Come, pet,” Kendrick’s command brings me out of my dream-like state as I stand in the middle of the crowd, holding my leash like a good girl.
I glance around for Sebastian, blinking, as the real world moves around me, but I’m glued to the spot. I saw him, I know it. I had to have, but now he is gone, along with the hope of being saved from the monster who led me down the street by a leather leash.
If a dream is all I have of Sebastian, it is better than nothing.