Page 79 of Rune’s Solace

He hadn’t.

So I did the only thing I had.

I gave my father the one thing he wanted more than anything in the world. I gave him me. “Okay,” I said, making my voice small, I made it the voice from back then, the good-girl voice, the one that used to keep the worst nights from getting worse, and I watched it land on him like a drug. “Okay. I’m sorry. You can look at me.”

And I walked toward him, putting more distance between me and Sawyer with every step, keeping my father’s eyes on my face so he wouldn’t look toward the corner. It worked. By the time I reached him, he wasn’t paying attention to Sawyer anymore. He was looking at me the way he used to, like nothing else in the room mattered now that he had his girl back.

“That’s it,” he murmured. “That’s my good girl. Knew you were still in there.”

I got close enough to smell him. I kept my eyes on his so they wouldn’t go to Sawyer, so his wouldn’t either. And behind me, I heard it, the smallest sound, rope giving, a breath catching, and I talked over it, fast, kept my father’s eyes locked on mine.

“I thought about you,” I told him, and it wasn’t even a lie, and I let all of it into my face, every year of it, because true things are the most distracting things there are. “Every day. I never stopped thinking about you, not once, not for one single day — ”

“Go!” I screamed.

Sawyer came out of that corner running. My father turned too late and lunged for him, but I stepped into the way and he caught my jacket instead. Sawyer was through the front room before my father could get around me, and a second later the screen door slammed.

I heard his feet hit the dirt, a car door, then the engine of his little hatchback catching outside.

Thank God.

The tires spun on the dirt and then he was gone, heading for the county road and the compound beyond it.

My father hit me. I’d known he would, and I’d already decided I could take it if Sawyer got out. I hit the concrete hard enough to make my head ring, and through the noise I heard my father go to the door and stop.

For one second, I thought he might go after Sawyer.

He didn’t.

He shut the door.

Relief hit me so hard I almost laughed. He was staying here with me, which meant Sawyer was still running, putting more distance between himself and this house every second.

That was all I needed.

He came back and stood over me where I lay on the concrete with my ears ringing, blood in my mouth, he crouched down, and brushed the hair off my face almost sweetly, and he said, “You put yourself right in front of me so he could run. Look at you. Cost me a witness, but that’s alright.” He smiled. “I didn’t come here for him anyhow.”

I looked up at my father from the floor and I thought about Sawyer tearing down a county road toward a compound full of dangerous men who loved me.

And I let my father pick me up off the floor, and I didn’t fight him, because there was no fighting him, there never had been, because every minute I kept him here, calm, with me, was another mile of road between Sawyer and this house.

I could be small. I could be the girl in the hallway one more time, one last time, if it bought the people I loved enough road to find me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

I PUT MY fist through the cabin door on the way out.

Didn’t feel it either. There was blood running over my knuckles by the time I hit the clubhouse, but that wasn’t the blood I was thinking about.

I came through the door hard enough to make every head turn.

One look at me and the room stopped.

“She’s gone.”

Devil was already on his feet.

“Bed’s cold. Boots gone. Jacket gone. No note. She’s not anywhere on the property.”