Page 283 of These Tears

I re-read the last paragraph.

The paper shakes in my hand.

Then I read the whole letter again, and blistering flames arise from the grief inside me. By the second pass, I am furious enough to make more stupid decisions.

He has done it again: changed my life and called the absence of my choice protection.

‘Anders knows very little…’ I say aloud as my eyes find the line.

No one can share my pain. He thinks he’s left me to survive, but he’s done worse. He left me alone without asking whether I wanted survival without him.

Then one thought cuts clean through the heat: no one knows.

The engagement. The lies. No one had known. They suspected something was wrong.

So none of the Nielsens knew I was brought unconscious to this place. Yet the cabin had been ready. The journey had worked. Elias had managed all of it – while coming straight from bloody Stonebrook?

He could not have done it without someone who understood records and routes and how to make a person disappear. Someone who keeps me safe behind the mountains and nothingness even now.

My eyes drop back to the letter, hunting through the handwriting until the words snag.

Sindre knows more.

The rage frosts over.

The ring goes into my pocket. I fold the letter once and shove it right after the ring, then fish out the truck keys from my jeans pocket.

Menace plants his bottom on the floor as Brute clings to my leg when my hand snaps at the door handle.

‘Come on,’ I tell him. ‘We’re going to ask Sindre how, exactly, he helped kidnap me.’

Because I will be damned if I’m letting anyone else make a choice in my stead again.

48

I shove open the door beneath the NÁLLU INK sign hard enough for the bell to give a startled scream.

Brute wedges his nose through first, sniffing the threshold, the floorboards, the base of the counter, and every bad decision ever made inside this place.

Sindre looks up from behind the counter, his welcome catching somewhere between caution and politeness.

‘Well, that’s a cute pup. He can’t come in here, though,’ he says, eyeing Brute as the dog snuffles towards the couch.

I cross my arms and glare in response.

Sindre’s eyes meet mine. His smile thins, his weight shifts to one foot. When both brows lift, I know my intuition was right.

The man gives me a wry little curve of his mouth.

‘Uh-oh,’ he says. ‘Am I in trouble?’

‘I am going to get us a drink,’ I grind out. ‘In the meantime, you will take inventory of your brain. When I am back, you will tell me everything I need to know about Elias and how you helped him get me here.’

He sets his jaw with a stubborn click as he straightens and clasps his hands behind his back.

‘Whatever do you mean?’ he says smugly.

Brute stills. Lifts his head to me. He must sense what little restraint I have left evaporating. But murder is frowned upon and I need this tattooed arsehole for a while.