Pulling away from him and continuing down the road, I grab my phone from the console and dial my captain’s cell. He answers on the first ring.
“Are you at the station?” I ask. It’s a tad early for him to be in, but I’m hoping something got him out of bed early this morning. I don’t know how much I’m planning to share, but I need to bounce some hypotheticals off someone, and he is one of the few people I know with the wisdom to help me sort through this.
“I can be soon,” he says back. The statement makes my throat clog, makes that tightness in my chest return. He might be at home having his second cup of coffee. His wife could have just set a plate of eggs in front of him. His grandkid might be groggily meandering down the staircase after a sleepover, and he’s willing to step away from all of that to be there for me.
And I just left the woman I’m falling in love with, handcuffed in her kitchen.
“Thanks.” I end the call with a click and press my foot to the gas a little harder.
For a long time, seeing Chloe rotting in a jail cell was something I saw vividly. Something I wished for. After a while, the visions were blurred between seeing her in a jail cell and seeing her sleeping beside me. That’s all that I’ve been able to see lately. Her blonde hair splayed across my pillow. Her red lips leaving marks on every mug I own.
Right now, I’m not sure which vision will become reality.
29
Chloe
Iwill never forget the look on my stepdad’s face when I lifted my foot into the air and kicked that ladder out from under him. I bet it is similar to the look he saw on my face every time he snuck into my room and held me down while I screamed for help that would never come, because my mother was knocked out on the other side of the house.
We’d been home from Hope House for less than an hour when the gold, gawdy ring on his finger split her cheek open. Her eyes met mine as fast as her hand met her own bloody, bruising face. I think she knew, at that moment, it was over for us. It was now or never. I know she could see me shaking with rage. I came home from the shelter with the deepest desire to have that peace we’d experienced there, forever. I’m sure she could feel the heat from my body, because I felt like I was going to go up in flames as that motherfucker shook his hand out and disappeared into the backyard like nothing happened.
And then he simplyfell.
“A horrible accident,” my mother whispered next to me, wrapping her warm hand around mine as we watched those pretty lights twinkle in that dark red puddle of blood expanding around his smashed skull.
An accident. It was our story. Then, and all the times to come.
My next stepdad, who lo and behold turned out to be just like the first one, I rather enjoyed watching his eyelids grow heavier and heavier as he eyed me in my bikini by the pool and the sleeping pills kicked in—until he fell face first into the water and drowned in his sleep.
The only thing I hate more than mythirdstepdad, is the fact that his death caused the chain of events that put my mother in prison.
Or maybe I did that.
He never touched me, because I wasn’t a young girl anymore. I wasn’t fresh out of high school. I wasn’t quiet, and malleable, and frightened.
I was hardened by what the last two had done to me, what they’d done to her, and I was not afraid anymore.
Once he realized I wasn’t going to let him look at me however he wanted, he hated the fact that I was always there. That he couldn’t hurt my mother and get away with it. But why would I leave when I had a whole wing of the house to myself? When leaving her meant leaving her vulnerable?
The silent threat in my eyes was clear every time our gazes met, and he was an idiot for thinking it was an empty one: touch my mother, and you die.
The moment the police started asking questions, we lawyered up. My mom brushed her soft hands against either side of my face, pressing her lips to my forehead. It made me feel like a child again, even though I was just shy of thirty.
“You were protecting me,” she whispered. “And we will protect you so that you can continue protecting others. They need you, Chlo. We won’t let it get this close again.” She pulled away, her eyes glistening, and I tried to argue. Tried to tell her that the photos and videos could be argued eitherway, but she was adamant. We would use that as my alibi, and she would do the time for my crimes.
And I will not forget the fact that instead of bursting in here, slamming the cuffs around my wrists, and hauling me to the slammer, Colin came through that door quietly, slowly, bent me over in my kitchen, and fucked me while demanding I tell him how many people I’ve killed.
He came inside me after hearing exactly how many lives I’ve taken.
That told me with almost one hundred percent certainty that he wasn’t going to arrest me, despite the fact that he handcuffed me to my fucking kitchen drawer and left me here to die.
He was afraid of feeling indifferent to all I’ve done, and that scared him more than I did. I felt it with each glorious slam of his hips into my ass. In each curl of his hand around my jaw. He was taking his hatred for himself out on me, and that’s fine. I’d allowed him to do that for the past couple of years, waiting patiently for him to come around.
He’s close now. I just need to wait him out a while longer—but he’s out of his mind if he thinks I’ll do it quietly on the cold floor of my kitchen.
I would have waited here for at least an hour, God knows I deserve at least a little punishment, but when I hear the muffled ping of my phone from my purse on the counter, I can’t help but wonder if it’s him. If he’s texting to say he made a mistake and he’s on his way back. That he doesn’t care what I’ve done or who I am.
Butterflies spring to life in my stomach at the prospect of him rushing through that door again, a bright light beaming behind him and smoke billowing into the room.
