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“She’s gone.”
***
Iwalked through theforest that bordered on the Kingsman house alone and silent. Chloe ran and I knew she wouldn’t have gone back to the apartment she shared with Elisse where her sister could corner her, nor would she have headed out to the interview, or to the courts to harass her coach who in my eyes shared the blame with her sister for the stupid amount of fucking pressure layered on her.
Chloe Duke needed to hide.
Which left a limited amount of places to hunt for my girl.
I crossed the small stream, jumping across the rocks just the right size for Chloe’s powerful legs, studying the damp ground for marks. Not many people came into the woods other than for a random assignation or to smoke weed.
Thankfully the eighty odd acres of land appeared to be vacant, except for me. Small prints that didn’t resemble any animal’s messed the edge of the path. I tracked them for as long as I could, and just when I thought I had fucked up and she’d gone somewhere else, I nearly fell over her perched on the edge of a granite boulder nearly as tall as she was.
“You know I thought I lost you,” I said conversationally, crossing my arms on the edge of the boulder near her thighs and giving her an easy grin I didn't feel while my heart pounded the tattoo of her name into the inside of my chest.
Filtered sunlight glinted off a small blade in her hand, her wrists lightly marked with neat, pale lines like she’d been practicing.
My blood ran cold.No one is meant to live in a cage.Certainly not the sort her family put her in.
“Are you going to talk me down, beg me to put it away, and come back with you?” she asked distantly.
I tilted my head to one side. “Is that what you want?” My mouth ran dry when she turned emotionless eyes my way.
I don’t know this side of Chloe Duke.
The girl who loved it when I played rough with her–I knew that girl.
The girl who fell apart when I made love to her, who cried my name and sobbed on my chest, releasing what I suspected was years of trauma and bottled emotion–I understood her.
This girl, with the glass eyes and the shattered soul?
I barely recognised her as Chloe Duke. But I did see someone else peeking through at me who might be able to help her when she thought it was too much and needed to escape.
Someone who felt that way once too, and who lost everything.
A reflection of myself.
