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At the checkout, I take advantage of the kind, compassionate look in the clerk’s eyes as she rings me up and say, “I’m just passing through the city and need to rent a car. I don’t suppose you have any idea if there’s a rental agency around here somewhere?”
“Yeah, actually, there is,” she says, slipping my purchase into a small paper bag and accepting my twenty-dollar bill. “If you keep going all the way down this street, almost until you reach the river, there’s a whole bunch of them right by the ferry stop. They’re in a garage under this huge gym with a trapeze on the roof. You can’t miss it. Walking you’ll be there in…ten, fifteen minutes tops.”
I smile and feel some of the tension in my shoulders ease away as she gives me my change, which I dump into the front pocket of my pack. “Amazing, thank you so much.”
“Sure thing,” she says, pushing the bag across the counter.
I collect the package and move toward the exit, tucking myself behind a change machine near the door. While I wait for Diana, I open the package, punch out the pill and swallow it dry.
It takes a few uncomfortable gulps, but I get it down and my tension levels fall a bit more.
I definitely want a baby someday, but not like this. I want to choose to have a child when the time is right. I want to be overjoyed about bringing my baby into the world, not terrified that I won’t be able to protect an innocent infant in a world gone mad.
And I want to share my excitement with my husband…
Like a kid picking at a scab, my thoughts return to Maxim, to the sweet things he said last night before everything went to shit, to the way he touched me and all the things it made me feel.
Not all of them were bad. Not even half of them were bad.
But I’m a strong woman whose parents taught her to love and value herself, and that’s not something I ever want to change. And longing for a man who hurt and betrayed me isn’t strong or loving.
It’s…crazy. If a friend of mine were acting this way, I would firmly encourage her to find a therapist and seek some professional help. Hell, I’d offer to drive her to her sessions and stand guard outside her bedroom door to make sure her man couldn’t get within ten feet of her.
But Diana’s right.
When you’re in the thick of a swirl of complicated emotions, things aren’t always as black and white as they seem from a distance, and I can’t help wishing Maxim and I could talk.
Just…talk.
Well, if you’re lucky, maybe he’ll come visit you in the deep, dark cell he’ll toss you in once he catches up to you and Dee.
Because if you don’t get going soon, he will find you.
The cell phone diversion will only buy so much time.
Jolted back to the more urgent issues at hand, I toss my now empty pill box in the blue recycling bin by the door and head back into the store to look for Diana.
I weave in and out of the aisles, dread growing with every corner I turn to find no sign of her. I reach the end of the pet care aisle and the brightly colored toys hanging on the shelves begin to blur and swim in my peripheral vision. The cloying scent of processed meat in the dry food assaults my nose, turning my stomach.
And then suddenly, like a camera’s flash has just gone off in front of my face, the world goes white. I squeeze my eyes shut and stagger backwards, reaching out to brace myself on the shelves.
When I open my eyes again, I’m not in the pharmacy anymore.
I’m in an alley, watching Diana and a younger man with close-cropped black hair struggle as several tall, masked figures dressed in black shove them into a windowless white van.
The vision vanishes as swiftly as it appeared, knocking the breath out of me on its way out.
I press a fist to my chest as I bend double, gasping for air.
But even before I manage to suck in a full breath, I’m staggering toward the door in front of me marked Staff Only. Instinctively, I know Diana went through there and that the alley I saw in my vision is somewhere beyond it.
I also know that what I saw hasn’t happened yet, and that if I move fast enough, I might be able to stop it.
I push through the swinging doors, still bent over, thumping at my ribs to loosen the tension holding my lungs prisoner. Thankfully, the stock area is empty and, to my right, the exit door leading to the outside world is already wide open. I catch a whiff of exhaust-scented air and the soft sound of voices and hurry toward them.
By the time I reach the door, I’m breathing somewhat normally again, enough so that when I see Diana and the raven-haired boy from my vision standing in the alley, I can call out, “We have to go. Now. Bad people are coming.”
Diana turns to me with wide, guilty eyes. “What?” She motions to the boy. “This is Jacob, Willow. He was literally right around the corner when I called, or I would never have—”
