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You do not need my protection anymore. Micah has been captured. He was found hiding out in a state forest in Nebraska. After he made fools of the prison system last time, they will be watching him 24/7. I also have men on the inside, and they will be watching him around the clock as well. You’re safe. You’re free—from him, from me, from the evils of our past.
I won’t send my men to watch you again. I no longer have that right. If you ever need help, I will send it, and if anyone ever tries to hurt you, tell Garrett, and my employees will take care of it.
The district attorney will want you to testify against my brother during his trial. Say whatever you want to. I accept all consequences for my actions. Stay safe, be well, and always remember I live only for you now. And living only for you means I must make the ultimate sacrifice. I must give up the only thing in the world that matters to me, to keep from breaking it beyond repair.
I stare down at the note, and it doesn’t make me cry anymore. It makes me very, very angry.
There’s a card stapled to the note with Garrett’s phone number on it.
I’m sitting in the very fancy hospital suite in New York City where I woke up five days ago. The skin on parts of my chest and my butt are achy and tight. Those are the areas where the plastic surgeons performed a full-thickness skin graft to cover the places where Micah carved and burned his name into my body. There are also two stitched-up areas on my abdomen where the doctors removed the skin for the grafts.
I very carefully tear up the note from Joshua into tiny little pieces and let them drift into the trash bin next to my bed. They fall like snow. They fall like the tears I shed when I first read it and realized that Joshua had abandoned me.
I’ve read the note so many times I have it memorized. It’s branded onto my heart. I will never forget a word of it.
He won’t let me stay with him and help him heal.
He won’t try to get better for me. I’m not worth fighting for.
I cried all day the first time I read the note. I haven’t cried since.
Inside me, there’s a hollow, aching void. I don’t know what to do now. I feel no purpose.
I miss him every second of the day. I miss him when I eat and have nobody to talk to. I miss him when I sleep and Micah chases me through my dreams. I miss him when I slowly, awkwardly give myself sponge baths while sitting up in the hospital bed. The nurse offered to help me, but I waved her away. I can’t bear the thought of anyone else’s hands on me. Ever.
I saw on the news today that Micah has already announced he will plead guilty to the charges of kidnapping Astrid and her children, of murdering Dr. Barnard, whose body has not yet been found, and of kidnapping and torturing me. He is refusing to speak to a lawyer.
He doesn’t feel remorse, I know. I’m sure that he plans to try to escape again at some point.
And Joshua is selling his company. I saw that on the news too.
What will he do with the rest of his life?
Will he dedicate himself to hunting?
Will he find another woman? Or a lot of women? Throw himself back into fucking high-end escorts who don’t make any emotional demands on him?
Thinking of that hurts me so much I can’t breathe, so I force it out of my head. I stand up, and I find I’m pacing the room aimlessly.
I asked my nurse how long I have the room booked for, and she told me that I could have it for as long as I want it. Like a fancy, overpriced hotel room. Even the food here is excellent.
I look at the torn-up pieces of paper in the trash.
“I’m going to leave today,” I tell her.
When I woke up in the hospital room five days ago, I found my suitcases full of clothes—my old, battered suitcases and the thrift store clothes that I bought myself before I met Joshua. There’s also the cash I had saved up before I met him.
He knows me well enough to know that I wouldn’t accept anything at all from him—not money, not new clothes, not a fucking bus pass. I could ask him for everything he owned, and he’d give it to me. I know that with a dull, aching certainty. But he won’t give me the one thing I want.
He won’t let me stay.
There’s one thing that he left me that I will use—a fake ID, and a card with an appointment at a beauty salon.
I know what he’s doing. He’s giving me a way to change my appearance, and a new name, because my face has been all over the news and it will be hard for me to start over as Tamara Bennett. The fake ID identifies me as Jennifer Dawson
Whatever. I’ll use the name for now.
I check out of the hospital that day and stand on the street with my suitcases at my feet and a yawning sense of emptiness ballooning inside me.
