Page 148 of Death is Familiar

“Showed me the report herself. Saw it with my own two eyes. Then I was fucking kidnapped!”

He lowered his head.

The tremors in my body had been replaced by the familiar undercurrent of anger. I really shouldn’t have been yelling at Todd. He’d come when I called. Did what I asked. He wasn’t judging me, and here I was making him out to be the bad guy. “Why are you letting me yell at you?”

He took his time before responding. “The truth?”

For that, Todd received an eyeroll. He was taking my ire like a champ. Still, I promised myself I’d try harder to not be so hotheaded.

“I like it.”

“What?”

“I like it.”

“Is this some trick to get me to cool down?” Because it was working.

Todd scraped his chair across the floor so it was practically touching my bed side. “Delilah, the FBI has been looking for you for over three months. Rochan assigned a secondary team to help in the search, and we found nothing. Nothing. Three days ago, I get a call from you, because you somehow—at a time I was questioning whether you were still alive—escaped your captors and decided I was the person you trusted enough to call. Whatever hell you’ve been through, you got yourself out, and I did nothing to help. All this time it hurt that I hadn’t done more. Gotten to you sooner⁠—"

“I don’t blame you.”

“No. I blame me. The whole drive I planned on how I’d make it up to you, the time you lost, that you hadn’t been able to count on us when you needed us most, only to find you out of your mind with fever, with whatever the fuck this is,” he gestured to my neck, “and I... All I could think about was how I could make you safe again.”

The warm toffee feeling was back. “Todd.”

“For the last three days, you’ve been in and out of consciousness, and all I could do was sit here and hold your hand, knowing there was a chance you might not wake up. That if they couldn’t get the infection or fever in check⁠—"

“But they did, and I’m here now.”

“They did. But that doesn’t make up for what you lived through. What’s been done to you—” he cut himself off, squeezing his hands tight as he took a shuddering inhale, “even if you woke up, I wasn’t sure if you would be you.”

Well, shit. If it had been anyone else in my shoes, he’d have been right. I would have expected that anyone who went through what I did to come out changed, and not for the better. But I was me, I survived, and that was that.

My tough-as-nails attitude still didn’t prepare me for what Todd said next, “So, I’ll take all that you can give me, so long as you continue to give it.”

Any witty rejoinder caught in my throat. Swimming in softness, I concentrated on my belly and said, “You sure? Because you’re getting far more of me than you bargained for.” My words lacked fire. Instead, despite my intent, they felt vulnerable, like an exposed wire. I hoped Todd would fill the gap, bridge the silence that followed, so I wouldn’t say the words I knew would come next. But he sat patiently, giving me the room to voice the fears that had been gnawing at my insides since I’d first acknowledged my passenger. “I… I don’t know how to feel about it.”

I shut my eyes knowing this was the part where I would be judged. I’d said the traitorous words aloud and now would come the ridicule. But at least, I’d said my truth. It wasn’t mine alone to harbor any longer.

A gentle touch graced my shoulder. I knew I should open my eyes. That Todd had something to say, and all I was doing was shutting him out.

Slowly, when I was ready, I lifted my lids. “That’s okay.”

Again, not the reaction I was expecting. “Is it?”

“There isn’t a right and a wrong way to feel.”

“It feels like there is.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Todd settled further down into the seat next to me. “And I will support you with whatever you need to do. But know that whatever you decide will be the right decision.”

Sure, when he said it like that, he made it all sound so simple. “How can you know that?”

“Because it will be a decision that you choose.”

My stomach fluttered. And I felt so very ooey-gooey in the middle. Couldn’t say I didn’t like the sensation. The feeling of being accepted, supported, and safe. That I didn’t have such a big secret to hide. Sure, Jack being the father was another issue I didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole, but for now it was just Todd and me. I could deal with Jack and all the other problems, all the what ifs, later. For now, I let myself feel peace.

I’d survived. I was out. And the Todd before me, even if pretty, was the real deal.