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And I was always around to fulfill their needs as Orson’s most trusted runner.
But I was glad when my day finished early. When Elijah hadn’t returned all night, worry had gotten the best of me. I was sure he would be back by the time I was finished with my runs.
I might have been angry with him, but I still didn’t want him running around Pario City, where he might find trouble. I shouldn’t have asked him to leave, but hotheaded as we both could be, it was best that we cooled down. I didn’t really believe that he had used me to overtake Orson. His memory loss had been real, but that didn’t change the fact that he had been gone while Orson had given me a place.
He's here now,I reminded myself. And I didn’t want to be without him again.
Whatever Elijah believed about Orson trafficking women had to be wrong.
I’d been going about all this all wrong. I would show him, and somehow, someway; Elijah and Orson would have to find some common ground before things got ugly.
We have to learn to communicate with each other better. That’s how we got torn apart in the first place.
With newfound determination, I headed home and rushed toward the shed, throwing open the door.
My blood ran cold when I saw his bag was missing, the bedding neatly folded in a corner.
“You bastard!” I cursed, kicking the door furiously. “You left again!”
My heart pounded furiously as I whirled around and stormed into my house, smashing the back door closed in my wake, hands shaking as I threw open one of the kitchen cupboards.
From within, I withdrew a half-finished bottle of cinderale, sloshing the liquid half onto the counter in my pour before downing the glass into my gullet. Refilling the glass, I downed another, and then a third, until my body stopped trembling.
He had left. The minute Ash had come to whisk him away, he’d picked up and gone. I couldn’t believe it.
No goodbye. No thank you. No warning.
I was furious with myself, but I refused to let myself cry, not this time. I’d shed enough tears over Elijah Webb. I wasn’t wasting another one on him.
The knocking at the front door got my blood moving again, hope springing through me.
Of course he didn’t just leave. He wouldn’t.
But when I opened the door, my veins froze. Orson and Etta stood on the stoop, neither of them smiling.
Oh, shit.
“H-hi,” I sputtered, eyes darting out behind them, half expecting Elijah to come flying out at them. “What’s up?”
“Can we come in, Abby?” Etta asked, stepping forward.
She didn’t give me much of an opportunity to argue, and I stepped back, allowing them both to enter. Orson followed, his face unreadable.
She went to him with my question, didn’t she?
I looked outside, debating making a run for it.
Don’t be stupid. There’s no reason to run off. Even if Etta did confront Orson about the trafficking, he’s not going to kill me over that… is he?
It wasn’t the question that was the problem; it was the secrecy that might rub Orson the wrong way. Despite his attraction to me, I had never stepped out of line, making Orson question my loyalty to him. But I did know others who had made the mistake of double-crossing him, and that had not ended well.
“Abby, are you just going to stand there with the door open?” Etta called.
“Are you drunk?” Orson asked. I realized that I must reek of the cinderale I’d just downed and blushed.
“I was just having a drink,” I confessed, closing the door.
“Oh, good!” Etta cried, suddenly producing a bottle of her own from the depth of her huge handbag. “Then you are in the mood for company!”
