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Or Ben.
Or Adrik.
Or a freaking black sedan driven by who-the-hell-knows.
Once the girls are strapped into their car seats and Josh is wedged in between them, I shut the door and turn to Phoebe. “Thank you,” I say, pulling her towards me for a quick hug. “Seriously.”
“Keep me posted, okay? I expect updates every few hours. I’ll try to come over tomorrow after work.”
“I don’t know if we’ll be sticking around that long, Pheebs.”
Her eyes go wide. “Seriously? You want to check out tomorrow?”
I shuffle my feet around. “I don’t know. My instincts are telling me that I need to leave as soon as possible. I can’t risk another kidnapping attempt. I can’t risk Ben catching us. I can’t risk Ruslan finding out about this baby.”
“That’s a lot for anyone to deal with,” Phoebe breathes. “You are one badass mama bear.”
“More like a desperate one.”
She puts her hand on my shoulder. “Sienna would be so freaking proud. You know that, right?”
And just like Josh was crying on my shoulder only a few minutes ago, I find myself crying on Phoebe’s.
I have no idea if Sienna would truly have been proud of me. A part of me thinks she’d be more pissed off than proud. I mean, I exposed her kids to a Bratvapahkan.Worse still, I’d let them fall in love with him, then snatched them away. I’m also taking them away from their father.
Would she be proud?Or would she look at me and see what I see when I look in the mirror?
Just a lot of wasted potential.
Just another stupid girl who made the mistake of falling for the wrong man.
5
EMMA
Honk-shoo-honk-shoo-mimimi.
I never thought I’d be grateful for Reagan’s silly little snore.
But right now, it’s giving me life.
It’s giving me hope.
It’s giving me something to focus on apart from the terrifying, panicked weight that’s parked itself on my chest and is getting heavier by the minute.
I check my watch. It’s been twenty-two minutes and Josh still hasn’t come out of the bathroom. That’s making me nervous, too. If you saw the bathroom in this motel room, you’d know why. It’s not the kind of place anyone voluntarily chooses to spend significant time in.
Pretty sure I spotted bloodstains in the tub earlier. I tried to cover them up with the depressing shower curtains that might’ve been yellow in their heyday but are now a sad, sickly brown.
Long story short: this motel looks like death, smells like depression, and I need to get the kids out of here as soon as I possibly can.
Click.The door opens.
Oh, thank God!
“Josh,” I whisper. “You okay?”
He doesn’t really meet my eyes and I can tell why: he’s been crying. His eyes are puffy, his cheeks are creased, and he’s got that tired, far-off look that he had the day of Sienna’s funeral.
