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“After our food was served, it’s all a blank until I woke up in the trunk.”
A cold sweat breaks out as I tell them about my initial confusion, then the absolute terror of reality. How the headache and sickness made it hard to move. Then the fear paralyzed me, and I almost missed my chance.
The moments before I jumped out of the trunk are the worst to relive. “I thought there was a fifty percent chance I’d end up dead. Or I’d break my legs, and I’d be lying there helpless while Sean stopped the car and came back for me.”
The memory swamps me, suffocating my voice.
Cash bites out a low curse, and the young officer grimaces. Officer Troy holds my gaze, his eyes calm and steadying. “Go on, Miss Quinn. You’re doing so well.”
The rest comes out in a rush, the same as my frenzied and panicked run through the woods. Falling, leaping up, branches hitting me in the face, terrified that I’d fall and not be able to get up, that Sean would catch me. Finally seeing the building and realizing what it was, hiding in the bushes and using my watch to call 911.
“I still wasn’t sure he wasn’t following me,” I say, my voice trembling. “I just hoped.”
Suddenly I’m back there, in the dark.
Hurting. Terrified.
Praying Sean still isn’t coming after me.
What if he still is?
My wallet. My phone.Oh, God.
He knows where I live.
“Hey. Just breathe.” Somehow I’m sitting sideways on the bed, Cash in front of me, his worried eyes level with mine. He’s cupping my cheek, his thumb lightly stroking. “You’re safe. Okay? You’re safe.”
I’m full-on shaking now, my lungs frozen, my heart fluttering.
My throat is closed up, no words escaping. Gray dots are floating across my vision.
“Ari.” Cash’s voice gets sharper. “I need you to breathe. Look at me. Breathe with me.”
I cling to his voice. The feel of his hand on my face. His gaze—so familiar, like coming home—until everything starts to come together again.
I’m in the hospital, notin the woods. Not in the trunk.
I’m sitting beside Cash, one of my oldest friends. The man who’s held a piece of my heart for the last eighteen years.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper between shuddering breaths. “I just—”
Cash shifts his gaze to the two officers. His voice is low and strained. “I think she’s done for now.”
“We still have more questions,” says the younger one. “We’re not done here.”
“She’s done,” Cash bites out, his brow coming down. “You can ask her more tomorrow. This is enough.”
“It’s fine,” Officer Troy—who I like much better than the otherone—soothes. “We have a lot more to go on now. We can talk again tomorrow.”
A nurse stops in the doorway, hesitating. “I have the discharge papers?”
“We can set up a time tomorrow,” Cash says to the officers, standing up and shifting so he’s in front of me. “It’s time for Ari to go home.”
Home.
Oh shit.
My voice is strangled as I force out the terrifying words. “My wallet, my phone, my purse, Sean must have allof it. And he—” My chest seizes. “He knows where I live.”
