Page 40 of Unhinged Obsession

Blair throws herself in my arms, and I hold her to my chest as Noah checks to see if Jonathan is still breathing.

“Did you check to see if he has a pulse?” I ask Noah, just to be an asshole, and all he does is flip me off.

Blair starts patting the pocket of her dress, and I realize she’s beginning to wheeze. I help her get her inhaler so she can take a puff.

“I’m carrying Blair down to the barn so she can get her breathing under control,” I call to Noah, and he just waves me off as he grabs Jonathan by the wrists and pulls him behind the rearing horse statue.

“Are you okay?” I ask, and Blair nods, but I don’t like that she has to take another puff of her inhaler.

“Who do you think was helping him?” she asks me, and I can feel when I scoop her up in my arms that she’s very tense, and I need her to calm down for me.

“I don’t know, baby, but we’re going to figure it out,” I promise her. “At least we know we’re looking for a woman.”

ELIJAH

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Breathe for me,” I say again, softer this time, as I set her down on a grassy patch outside of the barn. I know from past experiences that sometimes what starts as an asthma attack can turn into a panic attack.

“I think I should take you to get checked out,” I tell her, but she’s already shaking her head to tell me that’s not what she wants.

“Don’t be upset, this is normal,” she gets out the words before she has a coughing fit, and I feel my heart lodge somewhere in my fucking throat, but then she seems much better. Her shoulders gradually stop trembling quite so violently, the desperate wheeze in her chest easing just enough that she can pull in a fuller breath, and I don't think I've ever been so grateful for the sound of someone breathing in my entire life.

I cup the back of my wife’s head, carefully brushing her hair out of her face.

Her face is a little flushed, and I have to say, I’ve never seen anyone look so beautiful in my life."Does anything hurt?"

She shakes her head, but it’s slow. She’s hesitant in a way that makes my chest tighten all over again, like she’s still trying to figure out what her body is supposed to feel like after everything that just happened.

“My neck,” she whispers after a second, her voice thin and rough from her airway closing and probably the coughing. Her hand lifts unsteadily, fingers brushing where Jonathan grabbed her as if she’s afraid to press too hard, afraid of what she might find there. “I think… I think that’s it.”

I swallow hard, the motion sharp and uncomfortable, like there’s something lodged in my throat that I can’t clear no matter how much I try. I should have made him suffer longer, let him take days to bleed out.

But ultimately things have turned out way better than I think any of us anticipated. We have immunity from The Society, I’m married to the most beautiful and intelligent woman to ever exist, and we’re halfway to figuring out who was leaving those notes.

But for now, my girl is here, in my arms, warm and real against my chest, like the last few minutes of terror were nothing more than a nightmare I can finally wake up from. My wife is alive, and that single fact is enough to steady something inside me that I thought had already shattered beyond repair.

My entire body finally catches up with everything that's happened since we saw Jonathan in the cemetery. Before I even realize what I'm doing, I'm pulling her against my chest so tightly that I wonder if she can hear how violently my heart is pounding.

"Jesus Christ, Blair,” I swear to fuck, I just need a week where I don’t have someone trying to take you from me.

The words scrape out of me, rough and unsteady. I don’t even recognize my own voice when I hear it—too raw, too broken, stripped of every bit of control I usually cling to so tightly.

"I thought..." My voice breaks before I can finish the sentence, and I press my face into her hair because I don't even want to imagine the rest of it. "I would have killed everyone at that ceremony if they had tried to stop me from taking you as my Chosen One."

She wraps both arms around me with surprising strength, her fingers bunching in the back of my shirt. The way she’s holding me right now reminds me of when we were kids. It’s exactly the way she used to cling to me whenever thunderstorms scared her or horror movies got too intense.

“I know you would have, and I would have helped,” she says, and I can tell just by her tone that she’s smiling. I probably won't believe everything is finally over until we find out who was helping Jonathan. I’m so exhausted from the stress of trying to make sure that everything went to plan tonight that I feel the tiredness creeping through my bones. I can’t wait until I can spend the night with my wife asleep beside me. I want to be able to hear her breathing every few seconds just to reassure myself that she’s mine.

She pulls back just enough that her hands find my face, her fingertips brushing across my jaw with the same impossible gentleness they've always had. Her thumb traces across my cheek before she smiles at me, small and tired and so heartbreakingly beautiful that my chest physically aches.

“Thank you for always taking care of me,” she whispers, her voice still unsteady as she looks up at me like she’s trying to memorize all of my features so she doesn’t ever forget them.

She’s in for a treat, because I don’t ever plan on leaving her alone for the foreseeable future. She will come with me everywhere, and my brothers and I have already worked out a plan to move off campus. I want Blair to be able to finish school and walk during graduation, but we’re not living here with all these fucking cameras tracking us.

We’ll all live in the same house for safety reasons, but it’ll be plenty big enough for the five of us. It will be bankrolled by our father, who suddenly owes us a lot of money.

I know it’s late, and we should probably get going, but I need this right now. I kiss Blair, pulling her closer, and my hands find her face, and I let the moment speak for everything I don't have words for.