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It’d happened.
It was over.
And I had much more important things to worry about than a rapist who’d already been dealt with.
Aslan...
Where are you?
The pen scratched over the paper as I dated my statement, my concentration turning inward as I sent all my hope and love toward Aslan. I waited for an echo. Some soul-deep echo hinting he’d heard me, just like he claimed he had when I’d screamed for him as Ethan hurt me.
But there was no answering nudge. No sign that we were so connected, we could sense each other over time and space.
We had no magic.
No magic except our everlasting bond and the undying knowledge that we belonged to one another.
Shoving back the signed piece of paper, I looked up.
Wayne hadn’t taken his eyes off me.
I felt mean for being so snappy with him, but I’d meant what I said. I’d do anything it took to keep Aslan here, alive, with me.
With a weary sigh, Wayne took my signed statement and tucked it into the new file that’d been made on me. He didn’t speak for a long moment before finally shifting in the metal chair and pulling out a business card from his trouser pocket. “Here.” Stabbing it into the table, he slid it to me with his finger. “If you don’t want to talk to Jack and Anna, then talk to this woman. She’s very good at her job. Helps all manner of people overcome all manner of things.”
My initial instinct was to refuse as a tiny piece of me cursed him for thinking I was weak. But I balled my hands and scolded that egotistical part of me. I wasn’t weak by accepting his goodwill gesture. I wasn’t weak if I needed to talk to someone.
Nodding once, I snatched the card and slipped it into my bra—the only place I could store it in my little black dress.
His eyebrows rose but he didn’t mention my strange pocket. His steely hazel eyes met mine. “Do you want to tell me anything else about that night? Anything at all?”
Yes, you’ll probably find Ethan at the bottom of the ocean.
If you searched The Fluke, you’ll find Ethan’s blood all over it, regardless that we bleached it down.
If you knew what Aslan did to him, all because I asked him to, you’d deport him to his death without a second thought.
I shook my head. “I’ve said everything you need to hear.”
Glancing at the closed door, he leaned closer across the table. “You know, Nerida, sometimes the people we love the most are the ones most capable of doing bad things.”
I froze. “What? Why are you saying that?”
“Because, in my experience, where there’s smoke there’s usually a fire. If you and Aslan have managed to hide your relationship from your parents until tonight, the real question is...what happened for him to throw all caution to the wind and attempt...sexual intercourse...on Christmas? Knowing the chances of being caught were extremely high? What would make him not care about that? What would drive him to do something so out of character?”
My eyes dropped to my bruised wrists. I circled the fresh discolouration with my fingers, cursing myself all over again for wrapping the cord of my hairdryer around and around, then yanking and pulling as hard as I had when Ethan had tied me up.
My heart fisted all over again at the memory of Aslan’s face as he’d noticed. At the sharp glisten of horror in his eyes. At the awful way he tripped forward as if I’d driven a dagger into his chest.
To tell the truth or not?
To share what pushed Aslan over the edge or hope that Wayne just let it go?
But if I can make him see how caring Aslan is...it will prove he’s so good and kind and incapable of doing what my father thinks he did.
Pressing on a self-inflicted bruise, I murmured, “I...hurt myself. Aslan noticed. He’s been trying to get me to talk to someone ever since it happened. When I shut down and he saw I’d damaged myself, he...got scared.” I looked up. “He let his worry for me overflow.”
I shrugged and smiled sadly, telling my dad’s friend far more than he should know. “We were only an hour away from telling them, you know. He was going to propose to me in front of my parents after we’d eaten Christmas dinner and were opening our presents.” I laughed under my breath, not that it was a laughing matter. “I have no idea why we’re the only family to open our presents at night, but that’s how it goes in our household. Think Dad made the rule just to annoy me. It’s freaky to think that none of this would’ve happened if we’d just opened our gifts like normal people the moment we all crawled out of bed. Dad and Mum would’ve known we were together. Aslan wouldn’t have been wound up and worried about me. And I probably would never have...”
