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The drive home is almost unbearably long.
Isla attempted to get Torryn to talk about it, but other than confirming the necklace was one her mother owned, she hasn’t said a word since. One look was all it took for Isla to back down, but I can feel Torryn vibrating in her rage as she sits next to me.
She is a live wire ready to blow at any second. I worry about how much damage she’ll do to herself in the process.
Even when we pull up to the house and I park, she doesn’t move. I nod to Isla as she stares at her best friend. “Will you take care of the kittens?” She gives me a worried look as she agrees, but I think Torryn needs everyone to disappear so she can break. She’ll never do it in front of them.
None of us have said it, but we’re all thinking it. There’s only one person who could have sent that necklace to Rayne.
It’s a terrifying and humbling thing to realize how much access he has gained into Tor’s life.
As the others walk up the driveway, Torryn’s fists ball in her lap. She stares straight ahead, almost refusing to even acknowledge me as she asks, “Can I borrow your truck?”
I can’t help but study her. All the laughter from the day has vanished. The looseness in her shoulders and easiness in her smile are all but forgotten. I could say a million things. Try and make it seem like it isn’t a big deal. Make promises I have no way of knowing I can keep. But none of those things are going to make Torryn feel better. None of them will mean anything at allwhen a crazed stalker knows where her baby sister lives. “Where are we going?”
She shakes her head and crosses her arms over her chest, but I don’t miss the way her bottom lip trembles. “I need to go to the apartment.”
I turn the key and start the truck once more. “I can go?—”
“I’m not asking,” I cut her off. “You’re not going alone.” For so many reasons I can’t walk away from her right now. The only concession I get is her silence and we spend the next couple minutes sitting in it as I make our way to the Wild West.
It’s just as loud and shady as I remember it being. More like a frat house than any sense of a real apartment building with people milling in the halls, music pounding from behind closed doors, and peeling paint as we make our way to her apartment.
Nothing seems out of place at first glance, the front door fixed and locked as we left it the last time we were here. It’s been weeks since we stopped by to make sure everything was locked up after they fixed the door.
Torryn goes to put her keys on the counter when she freezes. There on the kitchen counter is a stack of mail that definitely wasn’t there when we were last here and next to it is a new note.
If you don’t want to be my good girl, maybe someone else will.
Chills tingle down my spine, making my hair rise on end and goosebumps crawl over my skin. What the actual fuck is wrong with this person?
Torryn grips the note in her hand, almost shredding it in her rage.
“It’s my fault.” Three simple words. Guilt-ridden and defeated. Completely and totally unlike I’ve ever heard Torryn sound before.
“It’s not—,” I start, but suddenly stop when her fist slams into my chest. Tears gather in her eyes as she stares up at me with a forlorn expression I wish I could erase.
“It is. He’s been in here. In my apartment.” She gestures wildly around the room, the tears spilling over as the entire situation crashes into her, overwhelming and drowning her with remorse all at once. “He found their address here. He found out about Rayne because of me. If she gets dragged into this—fuck—if she gets hurt, it’ll be my fault.” Her body shakes as she furiously wipes the tears from her cheeks.
Her fists hit my chest, and I let her take out her anger, fear, and frustration on me. It’s the only thing I can even do and I fucking hate that.
There’s nothing more for her to find here. She already got all the answers she needed. Her stalker has been here, going through her mail, finding even more personal details on her and figuring out exactly how to weaponize them against her. Maybe she hasn’t been giving him a big enough reaction, maybe he just wants to know he’s hitting her where it hurts. I have no fucking clue. I can’t even begin to try and fathom what runs through the mind of a sick pervert. My frustration only builds with hers.
The cops have been next to useless. They’ve pretty much written her off and said there’s not much more they can do until something happens. Why does she have to be hurt for them to care? Why didn’t we think of installing cameras in her apartment too? We could have at least had a better idea of who the fuck we’re dealing with.
Maybe it isn’t too late. I check the time and while it’s getting late, Beau should still be awake.
“We should go home,” I start, but before I can even finish my thought, Torryn is turning her anger on me.
“If it’s getting late then go,” she spits, stepping away from me.
Shaking my head, I grab her forearm, stopping her. “I’m not leaving without you.”
Her anger is too overwhelming for her to listen, for her to hear what I’m trying to say. That I’m not leaving her, that I’m not worried about it being too late, that I’m just worried about her. She doesn't want to hear it. She just needs someone to be mad at because she can’t be mad at the shadow that’s haunting her. So when she starts yelling at me, I can’t even be mad. Or hurt.
“I don’t give a fuck about your hockey superstitions, Baylor. I don’t want to go home with you and give you head or ride your face or whatever the fuck it is you think you need to do to win. I don’t fucking care about any of it. I don’t fucking care about what you think you need. I need to do something to protect my sister. That’s the only fucking thing I care about.”
The tears she tried so hard to push back, to not let anymore fall, stream down her face as her last words are broken with a sob that escapes. I pull her against my chest, wrapping my arms around her and let her cry.
