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“X is the one—”
I exploded before he could finish. “I know he is! I know it’s not my fault he is obsessed with me! I know I did nothing to entice him or make him kill those around me! But I have to take some of the fucking responsibility!” I roared. “As long as he is out there, he is a threat not only to me, but to those around me. I know this and I still fell in love with you! I still let her become my friend!”
“Love is a two-way street, baby girl,” Keelan said. “We knew what we were signing up for.”
“But Isabelle didn’t,” I argued.
“You weren’t allowed to tell her the truth,” Creed said. “And she wanted to be your friend. What were you going to do? Be a bitch to her to keep her away?”
“You’re not being fair to yourself,” Colt repeated Keelan’s words.
“Nothing has been fair for four fucking years!” I yelled as I threw my coffee mug at the front door. It shattered on impact. Ceramic pieces tumbled and slid across the floor and the coffee spilled down the door.
Fisting my hands at my sides, I glared at the floor as I tried to will myself to calm down.
Colt approached me slowly. “I’m sorry about Isabelle.” His gentle tone only undid the little amount I was able to calm myself. “But punishing yourself will not undo what happened to her, nor atone for it. And I don’t think Isabelle would want you taking on the guilt of it, either,” he said.
I shifted my glare from the floor to him.
He stared right back at me with a hard expression. “If that isn’t enough to convince you,” he added, “then remember that what you do to yourself affects not only you, but us as well.”
You suffer, we suffer.
I continued to glare at him as I mulled over his words. With a heavy sigh, I dropped my glare and looked away. “I’m sorry.”
Colt closed the distance between us and wrapped his arms around me. One of his hands went to the back of my head before he kissed my temple. “I can’t fight your guilt for you, babe, but I can fight it with you,” he whispered.
I slid my arms up his back and fisted his shirt. The tears I thought I had run out of began rolling out of my eyes. Not caring that they were soaking his shirt, Colt held me until I found the strength to let go of him.
* * *
For a good chunk of the morning, I struggled to deal with what Mr. X had done to me without remembering the way he’d touched me. The sickening part was that I had enjoyed it at the time because I had thought it had been Knox. We had been having issues and he had turned me away when I’d attempted to seduce him in red lingerie. Even though I had been so mad at him for not being honest with me, I had still wanted him—still loved him. So when I had thought he had come to me in the night, touching me like he desired me as much as I desired him, I had been happy and disappointed I’d been too tired to do more with him. Now, I felt like a fool. I felt disgusted, violated. And I couldn’t stop feeling Mr. X’s hands and mouth on me.
I tried to stay busy, hoping that would help. I went into the room Logan had claimed the last time we’d been here. There was a large safe in his closet. Inside were keys, a rifle, a pistol, stacks of boxes full of bullets, a laptop with an external hard drive sitting on top of it, and my go bag, which I had put in there before leaving for town yesterday.
First, I opened up my go bag and grabbed the burner phone that had Ian’s number and Logan’s ex-Navy SEAL buddy’s number and its charging cord. Next, I grabbed the keys, hard drive, laptop, and its power cord. Out in the living room, Colt, Creed, and Keelan were sitting around looking bored.
I handed the laptop, power cord, and hard drive to Creed. “There isn’t any internet, but there’s a bunch of movies on this hard drive.” I handed the keys to Keelan. “These are to the basement and the shed. You’ll find the entrance to the basement outside on the side of the cabin near the log pile. Down there is a small gym and a bunch of board games. The shed has outdoor stuff like fishing gear.” All of the things I mentioned had been left behind by the previous owner, who according to the realtor was an elderly lady who’d used to vacation up here with her husband and their family multiple times a year before her husband had passed away. Now that her husband was gone, she hadn’t wanted the property anymore and had sold the place with pretty much everything inside. The realtor had told Logan that it was because she hadn’t wanted to deal with the hassle of moving, which worked out for us perfectly.
“Where’s Knox?” I asked them.
“He went for a walk,” Creed answered as he got up to plug in the laptop.
I looked toward the front door, wondering if he was all right. He had been too quiet this morning, even when we’d all eaten breakfast together. I had been so busy dealing with my own demons all morning, I hadn’t taken the time to ask what was wrong.
Deciding to check on him when he got back, I went into my room and plugged in the burner phone to charge it. Wanting to stay busy, I collected all the stuff I would need to change my hair from where I’d put it on my dresser yesterday and headed to the bathroom.
About an hour and a crap-ton of foil later, I stood in front of the mirror waiting. My sections and foil technique would never get me hired at a salon, but for a home job it didn’t look too bad. According to the instructions, I couldn’t leave the bleach in my hair for more than thirty minutes. I really, really hoped I didn’t fry my hair. I could live with traffic-cone-colored hair so long as I didn’t have to chop it all off. I turned my head side to side, trying to envision it. “Orange might actually look good on me.”
I huffed a laugh and folded my arms across my chest. Hair was such a trivial thing to worry over given everything else that was going on. Maybe I should take this type of worry as a reprieve.
I glanced at the time on the burner phone I’d been able to charge for a short time. Seeing that it had been thirty minutes, I took a deep breath and began unfolding a foil piece from my hair. The moment my small chunk of hair was revealed, I stopped breathing.
My hair was not fried.
My hair was not orange.
“No,” I gasped and began ripping foils out. Each chunk of hair that was unveiled was the same. I didn’t know how long I stood there, shocked. I gripped the edge of the sink, debating what I should do. I needed to rinse the product out, but I was considering keeping it in, hoping it would make what I was seeing go away.
