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"Trust me, Bex. I'm doing my best. I feel… I feel better than I have in a while, being here," she admits. "I don't… I don't feel him," she whispers, I guess just in case he is here and listening.
"James is the only one who knows where we are. We're safe here, Mia. It's just me and you. I promise."
She nods, but despite her previous words, her eyes continue to roam along the tree line, as if she's waiting for someone to jump out at any moment.
"Can you talk about it? What you saw, what he did?"
Her head lowers for a beat as all the air rushes from her lungs. "I don't know what was real and what wasn't."
"How about we just assume it was all real?" I suggest.
"I'm not sure I can cope with that being the case. That would mean he's been—" The emotion in her voice forces her to stop for a beat. "It means he's been watching us—me—this whole time."
"Motherfucker," I curse under my breath.
"He's only stood in front of me twice. In my bathroom and at the ball."
I swallow down the lump in my throat at the image that emerges in my head of him talking to her, threatening her, scaring the living shit out of her and none of us believing it was real.
"W-what did he say to you?"
"He…he… he just threatens me, although he never actually says what he wants, what he's going to do. Just that I know. He's crazy, Bex. Hell-bent on his mission to take over, or whatever it is he really wants."
"What about the other times?"
She's silent for so long that I wonder if she's going to respond.
After long agonizing minutes, her lips finally part. "He just watches me, makes sure I know he's there. In the trees at the house, around college, in… in class."
"He was in your fucking class?" I boom, instantly feeling bad when she flinches away from me. "I'm sorry. Why didn't you tell me?"
She scoffs.
"I'm—"
"Don't, Bex. Don't tell me you're sorry again. It doesn't change anything."
"I know."
"I thought I saw him in class the day I passed out. That's what I was running from when Ashton saw me. I really believe him, you know. I think he's on our side right now."
"I trust you, Mia. And if you say that, then I'll try to do the same. But if he gives me any indication that his intentions with you, with any of us, aren't pure, then I will not bat an eyelid at taking him out. If he is a threat to you in any way, then he’s gone."
More than gone. I’ll put a fucking bullet through his skull myself.
She nods despite the fact that all the blood drains from her face at the suggestion of me killing someone else. I don't want to—I never wanted to kill anyone, that's not who I am. But I won't blink if someone's life needs to end to protect the girl I love. I meant it when I said I would literally do anything to keep her safe, including laying down my own life.
"I think we need all the allies we can get right now."
"It shouldn't be this way," I mutter, more to myself than anything. I can't deny that what she said earlier wasn't tempting, to just leave and never come back. But I can't. I might not have wanted this life, but now itismy life, and I really want to believe we can be the ones to make the changes that are necessary.
Somehow, we will get rid of Cade, and together, Mia, me, and the others can move Q into the twenty-first century and turn it into something better.
I have to believe that is possible, or all of this—all this pain and loss—will have been for nothing.
As the sun dips below the trees, plunging us into their shadows, the temperature almost immediately plummets. Mia visibly shivers, placing her now empty glass on the table and wrapping her arms around herself.
"Do you trust me?" The second the question falls from my lips, I regret it because Mia has every right to say no. But I breathe a sigh of relief when she turns to look at me, because I can already see her answer in her eyes.
