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The motherfucker had stabbed me.
THIRTY-FIVE
SAVANNAH
The front door banged against the interior wall as Ezra’s heavy footsteps pounded across the porch before they faded into the distance.
Gripping the sheets to my chest, I tried to orient myself. To catch up to the fear that consumed. This terror that things had just spiraled out of control.
Funny that five seconds ago I hadn’t been afraid when I’d woken to Ezra getting dressed. I’d been struck with a lance of pain, immediately jumping to the conclusion that he was leaving right after he’d promised that he would never hurt me.
My psyche had laughed in my face, demanding to know if I had thought it would be different. Taunting me for falling into the trap of trusting.
People were never who they claimed at the beginning.
They hurt.
They wounded.
They abandoned and they forgot.
It’s what they did.
It’s what they always did.
I should have expected it.
I just shouldn’t have expected it to hurt so bad, but how wouldn’t it after I’d shared with him my past? My pain? And I’d been so close—so very close—to telling him why I was really here. That I was looking for my sister. That I didn’t believe that she’d just left me.
Only I’d been swamped with the reminder of what had happened with the last person I’d been foolish enough to share it with.
That officer who’d used it as an opportunity to get close to me.
Manipulate me.
I’d known better. I’d known better.
Even after all of that, I had been tempted to tell Ezra.
Somehow, I’d held it back. Because if I trusted him with that? He would have all of me.
And how could I give it to him? After everything this excruciating life had taught me?
But I was allowing Ezra to get so deep. Deeper than anyone before him.
Maybe it’d felt safer to jump to the conclusion that he was sneaking out.
Leaving me behind.
It’d only taken a blink of clearing my eyes to see that Ezra’s were close to black.
That his warm gaze was dimmed with destruction.
As if he’d been possessed by another entity completely.
A part of himself rarely seen.
The shattering of glass was what had finally clued me in to Ezra’s intentions.
My nerves clanged and clattered as I strained to listen, my ear tuned to where he’d clicked open the front door and slipped out.
Fear pulsed against the determination that flailed in my middle. The part of me that had refused to believe that my sister had left me, the part that cried out that something was wrong, that she was in need. That the journal actually meant something, even though it had never once mentioned her by name.
Terror chugged my pulse in ragged beats. What if whatever danger she had found herself in had just caught up to me? What if the near break-in at the motel hadn’t been random? What if I’d brought danger to Ezra? To his children?
My attention darted to the closet where I’d hidden the journal beneath extra blankets and pillows that were stored on the top shelf.
Horror flash-fired. Magnified and turned over. I couldn’t stand the idea of him being hurt because of me. Couldn’t imagine. Couldn’t let it happen.
I tossed the covers off, grabbed my cell from the charger, and ran down the hall. I was still only dressed in my panties and that camisole, but I didn’t take the time to worry about it.
I refused the smack of cold that doused my skin in chills the second I stepped out into the freezing air.
None of it mattered when I had no idea what was happening to Ezra outside.
Stalling near the doorway, I listened, unsure of what to do.
Until a roar hit the night. Piercing and cutting into the disorder.
I pushed all the way out the door, and I ran across the porch and out onto the grass before I hit the end of it and the ground became hard. Littered with weeds and dirt and rocks.
I tried not to whimper as sticks and sharp edges of stone bit into the soles of my feet.
I strained to focus, to orient myself to the night that swirled in a disorienting mist. My eyes narrowed as I tried to make out what was in front of me, and a horrified cry jutted free when I realized it was the shape of Ezra on his knees, upright for one moment before he toppled over to the left and slumped to the ground.
Panic squeezed my heart, and I raced to him and dropped to my knees behind him. “Ezra, are you okay? What happened?”
I touched his sweat-drenched forehead, and I tried to lean over him enough that I could see his face. Wide eyes blinked up at me, the whites glinting beneath the glow of the moon.
“Fucker stabbed me,” he grunted.
Terror ripped through my consciousness.
“Oh my God.” It was a whimper, and my hands shook uncontrollably as I fumbled to lift my phone to dial 9-1-1.
