I find Emmy browsing through a collection of framed photos of us—all the ones I’ve kept with me during our time apart.
My chest tightens when I glance over her shoulder, noting the image in her hand, remembering how it’d been taken a scant week before everything fell apart.
“One of my favorites.”
Nostalgia fills my voice, and Emmy sighs wistfully as she continues to stare at the image of us in her hands.
It’s from the day I brought her to open houses throughout New York, back when we’d planned and dreamed of all the things we’d do when we got a place of our own.
Before reality stole those dreams away.
“We look so happy.”
She traces her index finger over the glass, brushing over our bright smiles and outlining our arms around one another. Our delight-filled faces had no idea of what was to come.
A combination of sadness and frustration ripples through me as I think of the life we could have had if my damn father hadn’t ruined everything. Memories of his trial and the vitriol hurled at my family name edge to the forefront, and I push them down. Deep down, as far as they’ll go.
I’m only grateful for my friendship with Vaughn, which had shielded my mother and sisters. He’d been able to pay some crooked official to have Whispering Willows physically disappear off the map, and due to my ability to finance it from behind the scenes, my family has spent these last five years practically living off the grid.
They’re safer if I’m here – or at least that’s what I tell myself when the guilt over not returning home settles in.
But the truth is, I’m still not ready, even after all these years, to work through the trauma my father left behind. Maybe I’ll never be ready.
“Come on.” I pluck the image from her grasp, placing it down among the handful of other pictures taken over the course of our history. “I’ve run a hot bath for you.”
Then I take her hand in mine and pull her down the hallway into the waiting bathroom, smiling to myself when I hear her surprised gasp. As her eyes rake over the space, appreciation lights up her beautiful face.
“Thought you could benefit from some R and R.”
I step back, making my way out the door, but her hesitant voice stops me. “Could you…umm…help with the buttons…”
With a grin, I make a pivot gesture with my index finger, and once she presents me with her back, I work on undoing all the tiny beaded buttons until I reach the base of her spine.
My eyes rake over her exposed skin, down to the curve of her back, as I whisper, “That should work.”
She nods her thanks over her shoulder, her cheeks pinkening in that way that never fails to put a smile on my face.
I’m grinning to myself when I’m almost over the threshold, and her voice stops me from leaving. “Don’t close it all the way…” My eyes meet hers, and I see fear swarming in their blue depths as her voice drops to a low murmur. “I—I don’t want to be alone.”
“I’ll be right outside.”
Her shoulders drop as some of the tension leaves her body, and she breathes an audible sigh of relief.
Having left the bathroom door ajar as requested, I settle on the floor outside, listening as Emmy drops the beaded dress to the floor. Her shoes are the next to go, and I can just about make out the sound of her bare feet crossing the black marble tiles.
She hisses as she steps into the hot water before humming in pleasure. I can hear her settle within the bubbles and then silence until she whispers almost imperceptibly.
“He wasn’t wrong, you know.”
I know immediately she’s referring to Dave Palmer, the mild-mannered schoolteacher who my team has since discovered had been meticulously planning her kidnapping for the last five years. But I keep quiet; she needs to get it all out.
“That thing he said about recognizing a broken soul?—”
Her breath catches on a low sob, and it takes every ounce of strength inside of me to stay put. I ball my hands into fists,straining to hear her whisper, “The entire year I played Éponine, I was a shell of myself. So deeply damaged. Broken.Beyondallrepair, and I hid it. Fromeveryone…or so I thought…”
She exhales heavily, sobering suddenly, and determination changes her voice when she speaks again. “The day you left…where did you go?”
A frown puckers my forehead at the sudden shift in topic, but I answer regardless. “I went straight to Rogue, hoping for a job. Knew I could fly beneath the radar there, but be close enough to watch over you…”
