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“Try to be ready by the time I get home. I, uh . . . I need to get to work.” When I nodded, he gestured to his throat and said, “Find something that will cover that for tonight. I can’t have you going anywhere today, Harlow, and after—well, after this morning, I can’t have you calling anyone. You understand?”
Of course I understood. My throat was still bruised an ugly shade of yellow and purple, and he thought I would call the police. He’d hidden my purse before I woke up on Tuesday morning, and I figured from his words that he was going to keep it for a while longer. I tried to keep my face blank, but I hated the fact that now he wouldn’t be with me, and he would have Knox’s phone.
“Your keys, phone, even the house phones. I can’t risk it.”
My eyebrows shot up, but I kept my mouth shut. He’d never taken the house phones with him.
Aggravation replaced the apologetic expression. “I need to—”
“I understand,” I said before he could finish.
Collin took a step toward me, but then rocked back and sighed. “I love you,” he whispered, turned, and left.
Tears filled my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall until I heard his car start. Once he was gone, a strained sob burst from my chest, and I stood there staring at the front door like I didn’t know what to do. I felt lost. This wasn’t my monster; this wasn’t my husband. My monster didn’t leave visible marks on my throat. My monster didn’t cut off my air until I passed out and point a gun at me. He didn’t try to stop me from breathing multiple times in one day, or force me to eat food while choking on it.
I glanced to the left to the knocked-over chair, forgotten toast and coffee, and bits of egg on the floor, and a part of me wanted to finally give up. To say forget everything, warn my family, and just leave. But before I was able to understand the movements, I was walking into the kitchen and cleaning.
He’s trained me well, I thought disdainfully, then pushed that thought out of my head. I wasn’t cleaning this for him; nothing I did was for him. Everything I did was to hopefully spare me from more pain. I might have learned what to do and not to do to make Collin happy over the years, but that was simply because I’d slowly realized that it was my greatest form of self-defense from him.
AFTER CLEANING THE house and doing a load of laundry, I stood in the shower for forty-five minutes while sobbing and trying to figure out what to do, then finally pulled myself together and stepped out.
I grimaced when I looked at myself in the mirror. I’d been trying to avoid it lately, but now that I was looking, I couldn’t stop. Large, fading bruises along my ribs and hips, little dots along my arms that looked like everyday bruises if you didn’t know differently, and the monstrosity on my throat. If it were possible, I looked thinner. Looking at my reflection made me feel sick even though the bones that jutted out weren’t anything new.
I ran my fingers over the bones, then the bruises. When I got to my throat, I leaned closer and noticed that the area around my mouth looked red from where his hand had smashed down, and it looked like I was blushing on only one side of my face where he’d backhanded me. I pressed the tips of my fingers against my cheek and winced. I’d wondered which was worse, the beatings I’d always endured, or how he’d been this week. But one look at myself, one painful reminder of how it had felt to not breathe, and I knew I had my answer. I would gladly go back to the beatings, because I knew in my gut that with this new monster, one day soon he was going to kill me.
“Over something as simple as salt,” I whispered to my reflection.
Tearing my eyes from the mirror, I grabbed a towel and walked out of the bathroom so I wouldn’t be tempted to look again.
Once I finished dressing, I walked over to my side of the bed to grab the towel where I’d left it after drying off, and paused. Peeking out of the bottom shelf of my nightstand was my mini iPad. I’d taken it out of my purse to charge last week sometime, and I knew that if Collin had known it was here, he would have taken it with him.
I must have spent half an hour holding it and weighing the options before pulling up the iMessage app and typing in Knox’s number, only to let another fifteen minutes pass as I tried to figure out what to say—and if I should say anything at all.
Collin had my phone. If he checked it, he would see it. But as far as I knew, he left my purse in his trunk. Then again, right now, after everything, I didn’t care. I’m sure in a couple of hours when I came to my senses I would, but at the moment I had so much excited adrenaline coursing through my veins, only one thing mattered.
Knox.
I could still feel his hands and lips on me—phantom touches from Tuesday that left me trembling. That left me needing more of him, more of us. But more than that, I needed his energy; I needed it to feel like I could make it another day with my new monster. So after typing out a message to him, I let my finger hover over the SEND button for only a second before tapping on the screen. Then I waited.
Chapter 15
Knox
Present Day—Richland
I WAS STOPPED at a light halfway home after my shift when my phone buzzed in the cup holder. I’d barely glanced at the screen, but did a double take and reached for the phone as fast as I could when I saw the last word in the text.
(509) 555-8643: I need to see the stars.
There were only two people who knew about stars and who could have Richland area codes: Harlow and Natalie. It was a statement that would fit the latter so much, but I doubted little Natalie had somehow conned a way into finding out my number, or could text at three years old. But I didn’t understand why Harlow would be texting me from a phone that wasn’t the one I’d bought her.
Tapping on the number, I hit CALL and waited while it rang and rang until it picked up and Harlow’s voice mail filled my ear.
“Shit,” I murmured, and ended the call.
I drummed my free hand on the steering wheel quickly as I thought about what this could mean, and what I should do. And when the light turned green, I flipped an illegal U, earning me a couple of horns, and sped off toward Harlow’s house.
