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Where is she?
The view from Will’s living room is all skyline and twinkling lights, a vast sky overhead. There’s no sign of my life out there. I can’t see my beach. Can’t see my house. Can’t see Daphne.
My ribs bend inward, pulse getting louder.
The Morellis won’t have come alone. They’ll have come with police and FBI and all the attendant people they use to hunt down a man.
Maybe I should have stayed. The distinction between window and cityscape disappears. It pushes in until I might as well be standing on the ledge.
“Emerson.”
“Yeah?” I force myself to meet Will’s eyes.
“Are you okay?” He’s actually concerned, for once in his goddamn life, and anxiety tunnels down my veins with a fresh burst of adrenaline.
“Let’s just keep talking.”
He hesitates for a minute. Will and I don’t sit around and chat with each other. Especially not when I have fled my home at the behest of one little painter with tears in her eyes. He finishes his beer.
“Is Daphne okay?”
“I left her at my house.” Panic swells, beating at its frame, both fists. “She asked me to go. She begged.” He’s going to tell me I was a fool. “Dad came to brag about what he’d done. By the time he was finished, it was too late for both of us to leave.”
Will looks back at me. “Was it worth it?”
“Leaving?”
“Owning her the way you did. Which was—” He huffs out an incredulous breath. “You acquired her. For two weeks. Was that worth certain death?”
Yes.
It was.
She was the best thing I ever owned. Will’s making a morbid joke, but it’s true. One way or another, I’ll die for this.
I have enough money to go on the run forever. To leave the country and build a new life. To disappear.
Only I can’t.
All my money couldn’t buy nerves that don’t overreact to leaving home. I need my house too much. It’s a painful, ridiculous inadequacy. The walls of this apartment might as well be no walls at all. No protection from the outside world. A wide open space.
It was worth everything to be with her.
But I can’t speak to answer Will.
I can’t speak at all.
The words bounce off my skull and shatter. My lungs ache for lack of air. Panic blows out of its frame, tearing the canvas in the process, and floods my mind with sharp color and shrill screams. Someone kicks the door in, letting in a thousand overlapping voices and endless empty fields.
“Em.” Will’s beer bottle clicks on the side table. My vision dims. The sound of my heart overpowers everything else.
Better off dead without her, a voice like black oil notes. Better off dead than waiting for your heart to stop. Better. So much better.
My muscles tense. Will’s picture window is close. Available. I pin myself to the couch, but vertigo takes over. Like I’m already falling from his balcony’s railing. I would do anything to escape this. Anything.
I can’t turn my head to look at him. Can’t waste my strength on words. Can’t breathe.
Can’t breathe.
