AllFreeNovel
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We’re on the highway when Emma finally speaks.
“Why?” she rasps.
I can’t talk about it. All I can do is ask for her phone. She doesn’t have Caden’s number in it, but I find Billie, his fiancée. Of course, she’s Emma’s sister.
When Billie picks up, her voice is heavy with sleep.
“Put Caden on the phone.”
Something scratches, then there’s movement. A door opens, voices, and more scratching the mic. She was probably sleeping and Caden is somewhere else in the house like the insomniac he is.
“Kay? Are you alright?”
“I killed him.”
There’s a long pause. I know he can hear the tears in my voice, and he’s probably wondering if he was right or not when he mentioned Stockholm syndrome.
“Good,” he finally says. “I’m still in town. I will see you soon.”
“A few hours,” I answer.
My emotions are leaving me, and I’m starting to feel number and number as I keep going.
“Okay. Come to Elliot’s house.”
I nod, even though he can’t see me.
“Kayla.” He scratches his throat. “Mom is here. She hadn’t heard from you in two weeks, and she didn’t know what to do, so she drove all the way here.”
A sense of relief finally envelops me. I did the right thing.
I’m free, and I’m going to see the two pieces of my soul that have kept me surviving for the last month.
Something knocks against my chest. My heart. It’s weak, broken, reminding me that I’ll never truly be free without the man I love.
For now, I have to force myself to ignore it. I must.
“At Elliot’s too?”
“Yeah. We’re all here.”
I nod. “I hope they’re awake by the time I get there.”
“I’ll make sure they are.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Emma doesn’t try to ask about Nate again. She spares me the torture. All she does is put a hand on my thigh and squeezes tightly.
“It’ll be okay,” she tells me softly.
I let my head fall against the headrest and look at the dark of the night through the window. “I don’t know.”
It’s eight a.m. when Emma parks in front of Elliot’s house. I haven’t said another word the whole ride and neither has she. Not even when she saw me wipe Nate’s blood off my face. I’m cold, my muscles so tense they ache like I ran a marathon. But I push myself to walk to the door. I can already hear voices and giggles, and my heart swells with joy.
I open the door without knocking, practically running inside. Elliot and Ethan are on their living room sofa. In between them, Jade is playing with a little girl on her lap. And at their small table in a corner, Caden and my mom are sitting with another girl, trying to get her to eat some breakfast.
Everyone’s heads turn to Emma and me, and a sudden shriek of joy resonates in the room.
