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She hesitated for a long moment. “We’re moving again,” she finally said. My insides froze at her words.
“What?” I whispered.
“Yeah. My dad told me last night.” She rubbed her hands down her face. “I don’t want to move again.” Another sob ripped out of her.
My head was spinning, and I was beginning to feel lightheaded.
“When did he say it was happening?” I asked, my voice coming out strange to my own ears as panic threaded through me.
“After school on Friday.”
“What? But that’s tomorrow,” I gasped, sure I wasn’t hearing right. Who just decided to move and then left the next day? A psychopath I was pretty sure. “What about the house? You’re going to move before you sell it?”
She shrugged, another tear sliding down her beautiful face.
There was no way I could lose her. I couldn’t. Who would protect her once he took her away? I thought I could have a few days to try and come up with a plan to help her, but I…I would have to do something tonight. We’d have to run away, find someone who would believe us and protect her.
I’d already thought about telling my parents and then decided against it. I’d seen the evil in his face. There was something wrong with Delilah’s father. Something more than just the fact he was a child abuser. There was a layer of evil in his eyes and if my parents didn’t believe me and they didn’t call the police? Or heaven forbid they mention it to him for some reason and then he comes after my parents?
I just needed to handle it myself. I’d get her out of her house. We’d tell the police. And if they didn’t believe me, we’d just go live on the other side of the country where he couldn’t find us. I had money saved up from working the last few summers, enough to get us somewhere until we could find jobs—and finish high school. But GEDs were basically the same thing as high school diplomas, right?
Fuck. This was going to be complicated.
She looked at me through tear-glazed eyes, and I had the insane urge to kiss her. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure something out,” I reassured her, but she shook her head before I’d even finished my sentence.
“There’s nothing to figure out,” she whispered, before walking out of the bathroom without another word.
* * *
I stood in the kitchen, watching my mother hum as she finished drying some dishes that I’d just washed from dinner. I’d been so focused on planning what I was going to do to save Delilah that I hadn’t really thought about what it would be like to leave my family.
“I love you,” I blurted out. She looked up from the plate she was holding and flashed me a gorgeous smile. I tried to memorize it so I could look back on it later, hold onto the warmth I always felt when I saw it until I could contact her again.
“I love you too, sweetheart,” she said, reaching over and stroking my hair gently. The words were there, the urge to tell her the whole plan and have her just take the burden from me.
But staring at her then…I couldn’t do that to her. I loved her too much. Maybe people would think I was being unreasonable for trying to handle this at my age alone…but everything inside me was telling me that Delilah’s dad was not someone you messed with.
After kissing her goodnight, I pretended to go back to my room for a few hours, and then sneaked out, and circled back to the sliding glass door so I could slip outside. I had bags stuffed with essentials under the back porch to come back and grab after I got Delilah, and as I walked quietly between the houses towards her window, I just hoped I’d thought of everything.
But when I made it to her room…she wasn’t there. Her bed was still perfectly made and her bedroom door was open, a dim thread of light peeking in from the hallway beyond her door.
Fuck. It was late. I’d even waited until after my dad had come to check on me before he went to bed. Where was she?
I leaned in closer to the window so I could see more details inside her room, but a rustling from the nearby bushes caught my attention. I froze, my eyes darting around me. There weren’t lights in between the houses, and everything was dark around me.
Something moved in the bushes again, and my insides trembled. “Hello,” I whispered, hating that I felt like one of those stupid girls in a scary movie. But fuck, it felt like I was in one.
Where was Aurora?
Rocks skittered in the darkness and I began to back away from the sound, keeping my gaze on the bush where the sound seemed to be coming from. A low, deep laugh sent shivers sparking across my skin and I turned to run. And then…
Chapter6
Pax
The thought Aurora was hurt somewhere—and worse, that Stellan had been the one to hurt her—obviously filled Cain with rage. It was palpable, an icy tension around him, like being trapped in close quarters with a lion. As soon as I parked the truck and we walked back to the house, Cain bounded out, and everyone who crossed his path immediately thought better of it and scattered. No one radiated fury like Cain.
“I never thought I’d see it,” Remington muttered to me as we walked upstairs, “but I think he likes her even better than he liked the McLaren.”
