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She hated being the emergency.
“Why is Fin here?” she demanded a little more forcefully than she should have. If she wanted to keep people from worrying, she had to keep calm, but knowing that she was about to get bad news made it difficult.
“I think you better go inside, they're in the living room,” Michael said. She hated he wasn't going to tell her, but her anger dissipated when he held her hand and squeezed it so tightly it hurt. If Michael was this upset, then this was going to be bad.
Without another protest, she and Michael walked back inside and through to the living room where Fin, Chloe, and Tom werewaiting for them. Each of the three had grim looks on their faces, and Samara felt herself start to panic. She didn't want to be here, she wanted to be back outside tending to her trees. That was safe, and from the looks of what she was about to walk in on being in here was far from safe.
Still, she didn't turn around and run.
She made each foot go down in front of the other until she had crossed to the other couch and sunk into it.
When she and Michael were sitting side by side, Samara made herself meet the agents’ eyes. “What’s going on?” she asked. She didn't want small talk, she just wanted to know the reason for the stifling tension that filled the room.
“We believe that your stalker knows that you're here and that you have protection,” Tom explained. “Our plan to use you as bait to draw him out doesn’t look like it’s going to work.”
That was a disappointment, but it wasn't so bad. It meant that this wasn't going to be over any time soon, but if the stalker knew that she was protected then it meant he wasn't going to make another attempt at snatching her.
“So, what's the plan now?” she asked.
Looks were exchanged. It seemed they were trying to decide who would be the one who would break the bad news.
That the stalker knew that she had protection wasn't the bad news.
“Wait, how do you know that the stalker knows that I have a bodyguard?” Samara asked.
Chloe leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, the expression on her face trying to be all FBI agent but failing. “He was angry when he realized that getting to you wasn't going to be easy. He killed two people and left us a message, either we hand you over to him or he’s going to keep killing,” her sister-in-law blurted out in a rush.
“Oh,” she said, unable to properly process that information.
“Oh?” Fin demanded, pushing up off the couch and running his fingers through his dark hair making it stand on end. “That’s all you have to say?”
“Fin,” Chloe warned her husband.
Fin ignored her. “You have a deranged stalker who is so obsessed with you he tried to kidnap you once, and since that failed, he killed two innocent people and is going to keep killing unless we hand you over to him, and all you have to say about it is oh?”
“Back off, Fin,” Michael warned, more forcefully than Chloe had, and she could feel the tension rolling off him since he was sitting so close beside her that their thighs were touching.
She should be feeling that same tension, but she didn't.
Samara felt numb.
Two people were dead because of her.
He had threatened to keep killing until she gave herself up.
She had no doubt he would follow through on the threat.
The logical thing to do would be to give the stalker what he wanted.
If she had known this was going to happen, she would never have escaped.
Her mistake had cost two people their lives.
“Excuse me,” she said, standing up. She couldn’t sit in here with them any longer or she would start feeling things that were going to suffocate her.
“Don’t just walk out of here, Samara,” Fin growled, trying to grab her as she walked past, but she dodged out of his reach.
“Don’t touch her,” Michael said, springing to his feet and moving to stand between her and her brother.
