AllFreeNovel
Share Us
39
LIAM
I arrivein Cardiff in record time; fuck the speeding tickets if I get one. If Cerys thinks something has happened to Ella, I need to be with her. I don’t care that it’s 1 a.m. and she’s told me to stay away and stop worrying; she can’t expect me not to go to her and help.
Cerys’s friend answers the door, the woman with long brown hair whose kid Ella plays with sometimes, but my mind blanks when I attempt to remember her name.
“Is Ella back?” I ask the woman, although her drawn face answers for me. “How’s Cerys?”
“Freaking out, as you’d expect.”
She steps back to let me into the house and I rush inside. Cerys is on the phone, hands gripping her hair as she waits for a response from whoever she’s speaking to. Her face crumples to tears when she sees me, and I pull Cerys into my arms and hug so fiercely that she gasps.
“I said don’t come until tomorrow, Liam,” she says as she pulls away, face streaked where her tears rubbed into my leather jacket.
“I’m not leaving you to cope with this alone.”
“He’ll probably be here soon. Craig is doing this to punish me,” she says weakly.
“1 a.m.? So where is he?”
“I don’t know, Liam!” she shouts then drops to the sofa, shaking.
When I attempt to pull her toward me, her stiffened shoulders stop me comforting her. I feel fucking useless.
Cerys’s friend hovers in the kitchen doorway and I go to her instead. “Have you called the hospital?” I ask quietly.
“Yes. Nothing.”
“Police?”
“Liam, she’s with her dad—we can’t call this abduction. Yet.” The woman worries on her lip, pale face matching Cerys’s.
Abduction.The intense feeling that grips my soul, when I think about someone harming either Cerys or Ella, crawls into my veins. Is the man capable of doing something like that?
“You think he’s taken her somewhere?” I ask quietly, glancing at Cerys who sits and stares ahead, not speaking.
“It’s a possibility.”
Fuck.“What does Cerys think?”
“I don’t think Cerys thinks that yet, but she will.” The woman rubs her face and sighs.
“It’s late, you should go home. I’ll stay with Cerys,” I say.
“I don’t know.” She eyes me dubiously.
What does she know about me and Cerys? “Cerys, you’re okay if I stay, aren’t you?” I ask.
Cerys looks over as if we’re part of a hallucination. “What? Yes. Whatever. Thanks, Phoebe.”
Phoebe leaves and my panic over what to do remains.Shit. What do I do? I should get Cerys a drink because that’s all I feel capable of doing in the situation.
I make Cerys a coffee but the mug remains on the table untouched. She sits on the sofa gripping her phone, breath coming in short bursts. Every time I attempt to speak to her, she closes me down.
“It’s late, you should get some sleep,” I say gently, touching her shoulder.
“I can’t sleep! I need to wait until I hear something from Craig!”
