To the Stars

  “Touch her?” he scoffed. “I would never do that, wife.”

  With the way he was looking at me, and the way he called me “wife,” I was so sure he knew about Knox. But as I stood there holding my breath, he didn’t mention him or the secret phone.

  Collin reached into his back pocket, and a second later he was pushing my cell phone against my stomach. Once I had it in my hands, he stepped back and dipped his head in the phone’s direction. “I had to come home because I have no doubt someone is going to be calling you soon.” He turned and walked toward the couch, and the humor in his tone was unmistakable. “It’s convenient that your sister decided to stay in Richland over the summer, isn’t it?”

  My stomach churned, and the dread that filled me over the next few minutes was enough to make me almost forget that Knox was hiding out in the guest room.

  I jumped when my phone rang, and my chin began trembling when I saw “Mom” on the screen.

  I looked over to where Collin sat on the couch with a sly grin and asked, “What did you do?”

  His smile fell. “Me? That’s a bold accusation, especially considering neither of us actually has any idea what you’re even talking about. You should probably answer your phone.”

  After tapping on the screen and bringing the phone to my ear, the tears began falling when I heard my mom sobbing on the other end. “Mom?”

  “Oh, Harlow,” she whimpered, and her sobs increased. “Harlow, it’s Hadley, she—she drove her car into a-a-a—” She broke off, and I heard the phone being shuffled.

  My dad’s voice didn’t sound much better, but he was able to get the words out. “Honey? We’re on our way, but can you get to the hospital? Hadley drove her car into a house. She’s alive, she’s going to be fine, but they said they think she was under the influence of something,” he said. “Did you know she was into this? How did we not know?” he asked himself before I could answer.

  Not that I could or would anyway. I couldn’t even speak. My sister drank at parties, but never even to the point where she had to make up for it the day after. She definitely didn’t drink in the afternoon, and I could only assume “something” meant something other than alcohol. And that wasn’t Hadley. My eyes found Collin’s. No life, but they were still smiling.

  I wanted to scream that it was Collin’s fault; that whatever Hadley had done was because of him. But then I would pay, Knox would try to save me, who knew what would happen to him, and then the rest of my family would pay even more than they already were.

  “Harlow?” Dad asked. “Can you get there? She needs one of us there, and we’re still three hours away.”

  “Of course, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said.

  Dad choked out a sob. “It’ll be okay, Harlow. She’ll be okay. She will. She’ll be okay.”

  I nodded, though he couldn’t see me. Because Hadley would be okay, as long as I kept my mouth shut and tried to make Collin happy. “See you soon. Love you,” I whispered, then ended the call.

  “Go make yourself presentable. Try to cover your cheek, and make sure your neck is covered. I’ll take you,” Collin said in a businesslike tone. “We can’t have you around them by yourself, now can we?”

  I’d been staring at the floor, but when he finished talking, I slowly looked up at him. Inside I was screaming how much I hated him. I was taking all my anger from the last two and a half years out on him. I was making him regret ever touching me. On the outside I was still as stone as tears silently fell from my cheeks onto the floor.

  WHEN WE GOT home hours later, I understood just how much planning had gone into that punishment—and in only a matter of hours that morning. Once my parents had arrived at the hospital, we’d only been able to stay for another twenty minutes before Collin had told them about his parents’ anniversary dinner, which we “weren’t allowed to miss.” But only after swearing we would be back, and promising he would get Hadley moved to a suite in the hospital. Just enough time for my parents to see that I was alive and mostly well, and well loved and spoiled by my husband, and to remember why Collin was their favorite.

  But not long enough for them to notice my hatred toward him, why I would tense whenever he went near Hadley, or why he would give me a look that promised so many horrible things when I left his side for more than a second. And of course, with everyone so focused on Hadley, no one noticed my shaking, my too-thin body, or the red mark on my cheek I hadn’t attempted to cover.

  Hadley had had a nearly lethal dose of PCP in her system when she’d driven her car into the side of a house. In her state, she’d climbed out of the car—even with a broken arm—and had fought police officers when they’d attempted to restrain her. Police officers who had just happened to be following her.

  She was heavily sedated and handcuffed to the hospital bed with those same officers stationed outside her room when we’d arrived. But then Collin had saved the day when he announced he’d make sure all the charges against her were dropped, and would take care of the damage costs. Of course, he’d waited to do all this when my parents had shown.

  In their hysterical state, my parents had only been thankful for my husband and what he was doing. While I was thankful this wouldn’t go on Hadley’s record, I couldn’t stop from studying the officers as they’d taken the cuffs off my sister, and then left. Because there was no way something like that could just go away the way Collin had made it—especially with this new chief Collin hated so much—I knew they were receiving money from my husband. Just as the officer who had arrested me had.

  “Get ready,” Collin said without a glance in my direction as he took off for the bedroom.

  I waited until he was in there before going into the guest room to check the closet. I’d known—well, hoped—Knox would know to leave when we did, but was still disappointed when I found the closet empty and bed made. The windows in there were still closed and locked, and the front door had been locked when we’d come home, so I wasn’t sure how he’d left, and knew I didn’t have time to go around trying to find out.

  I walked into the bedroom just as Collin came out of the closet—already in a different dress shirt with a tie in his hand. His face showed that he’d been wondering where I was.

  “I told you to get ready,” he growled.

  “How did Hadley have PCP in her system?” I asked shakily. I knew I shouldn’t, I knew I wasn’t supposed to question him, but he could’ve killed her.

  Collin’s eyes narrowed. “Ask her yourself when she’s back to normal. It’s probably from all those clubs she goes—”

  “She doesn’t go to clubs. What did you do, Collin?” I whispered, pain for my sister evident in my voice. “It was salt. I threw up because I’d been so scared and unable to breathe while trying to eat the eggs, that my stomach kept churning until they came back up. I would never poison you, and you almost killed Had—”

  “Don’t finish that assumption,” he warned.

  “Where did you even see her? Why can’t you just leave my family out of this?” I knew what I was about to say could have the opposite reaction I was going for, but I had to try. “If I wasn’t always so afraid of you hurting them, I probably wouldn’t mess up so often!”

  His lips twitched, and he turned to look into a mirror so he could knot his tie. “Don’t act like this was anyone’s fault other than your own. It was just a coincidence that I decided to have lunch at the same place Hadley was at with a friend. We talked for a few minutes when her friend went to the bathroom, and I made sure Hadley had . . .” His hands stopped fidgeting with his tie, and his eyes found mine in the mirror. “. . . salt.”

  I inhaled audibly and my head started shaking, like I could make the words go away. I’d known, but hearing his pseudo-admission still shocked me. I don’t know why—nothing should have shocked me about Collin anymore. “I hate you.”

  A few things happened at the exact moment I realized I’d said those words out loud instead of just thinking them. I stopped breathing, Collin
froze and his lifeless eyes turned murderous, and I knew—I knew—I’d made a mistake. Not just in finally saying those fated three words, but with Knox. In not letting him take me away . . . in not trying to get away from Collin.

  I knew right then that if I had my whole life to do over again, I would’ve waited for Knox. That if I only had the past two and a half years to do over again, I would’ve fought harder to get away from Collin until I’d succeeded. That if I only had the past two weeks to do over again, I would’ve begged Knox to help me get away from Collin, and would’ve spent my life running from my monster, as long as I got to spend it with the man who had always held my heart.

  Funny the things you realize, the things you wish you’d done differently, and the things you just wish you’d done when you know your life is about to end. And I had no doubt my life was minutes from being over.

  With a slowness that sent a chill through my veins, Collin dropped his head and turned to face me. When his body was facing mine, his head stayed down but his eyes lifted. “Do you want to repeat that?”

  I didn’t move, and I didn’t respond. I knew he didn’t want me to.

  He took one slow step toward me, and my body tightened in preparation for what was to come. He took another, and my eyes met his. He took another, and I turned and ran from the room.

  I’d only made it two steps into the hallway before he grabbed on to my hair and slammed me into the hallway wall—the force sent a couple of pictures and a painting crashing onto the hardwood floor. My head bounced off the wall, and I tripped over one of the pictures as I tried to keep going, but he still had my hair fisted in his hand.

  Collin pulled me back roughly until my back was to his chest, and he whispered into my ear, “Again. Do you want to repeat that?”

  I blinked away the dark spots in my vision, and then realized I had blood dripping from my forehead. I swiped at it and whimpered when he jerked my head back. “Collin, please.”

  “Please, what?”

  “Don’t do this.”

  He laughed, but it sounded more like a sneer. “Not a question this time. Repeat what you said,” he demanded.

  I shook my head and a cry bubbled up my throat.

  “Tell me what you said!” His entire body jerked with the force of his command.

  “I hate you.” The words were a whisper, and I barely had them out before he moved from behind me and flung me onto the floor. I hadn’t had time to brace for the impact, and now it felt like my entire head was ready to explode.

  Collin’s weight fell onto me quickly, his knees pinned my hands to the hard ground, and like he had done so many times this week, his hand went around my throat and squeezed. His hand forced a cry out of me, and I immediately began bucking underneath him.

  “You hate me now? After everything I’ve done for you? After everything I’ve given you?” he roared, and squeezed tighter.

  I’d stopped fighting against him by the time he’d finished yelling. Hitting my head twice, losing so much blood from my forehead, and him cutting off my air made the fight go out of me faster than it ever had before.

  When I was on the edge of losing consciousness, his fingers loosened one at a time, and I began choking as I tried to suck in air. My eyes were wide open as I looked around wildly, but when I caught the briefest glimpse of Collin’s, I’d wished I’d kept them closed.

  Not lifeless. Still murderous. Not my monster. Something new, something terrifying, something I knew I would never see again because he was finally finished with me. Collin’s lips twitched into a quick smile, and he grabbed my hair in his hand as he stood up and began dragging me over frames and broken glass.

  I think some type of cry was forced from my chest, but it sounded weak. My whole body felt weak. The left side of my face was wet and warm, and even though I could breathe freely now, I wasn’t sure how long I had before I could no longer keep my eyes open.

  The hardwood below me changed to carpet, and something like horror spiked through my body when I realized he was dragging me through the guest room. In between trying to keep myself conscious, I once again thought that Collin must know about Knox, must have somehow known that he’d been in the house this afternoon—but then Collin kept dragging me until I was on tile.

  I heard the bathwater turn on and whimpered in protest. We didn’t have a tub in our bathroom, mostly because Collin hated them, and whenever he cleaned me up or had some kind of water punishment, it was done in the shower—never the bath. Regardless, I hated those punishments, and didn’t want to have to fight this. But instead of undressing me like he normally would, Collin lifted me just to drop me into the large tub, which had hardly any water in it yet. I cried out when my body smacked down on the hard acrylic, and even though I didn’t try to get up, Collin pressed his hands against my chest to keep me in place after he put the stopper in to let the water start collecting.

  I looked up at him in panic. His face was perfectly composed—he almost looked bored, as if he was watching grass grow. The murderous look had left, but in its place was an emptiness I’d never seen. I’d thought his eyes had been lifeless before—but this was like he was really dead.

  “Collin. Collin!” I tried to yell, but my voice was hoarse and soft. “Collin, please!” I started breathing too roughly—but the movements made breathing harder from how much weight he was putting on my chest—and as the water rose higher and higher, I began hyperventilating. My thrashing in the tub wasn’t helping me. “Collin!”

  He sighed, and his eyes drifted to where the water was splashing over the edge of the tub, and then down to his arms. “Now I’m going to have to change again.” He sounded annoyed by that, but he didn’t move his arms as the water rose higher up them and over his tie. “Which shirt should I wear tonight, Harlow? I think I’d like to wear my green tie. Do you know which one? Not the one with the design on it. The solid green one.”

  “Collin!” I screamed over the water, and tried to raise my head higher when it started drifting over my lips.

  “Well, do you know which tie, or not?”

  “Forest green,” I spit out, and he nodded absentmindedly.

  “Now, which shirt do I wear with that, Harlow, and don’t say black. I need to know.”

  I blinked quickly and tried to calm my mind. The sooner I thought of a shirt, the sooner he’d let me up. “Um. Gray. Light gray.” My panic went into overdrive when I saw the slightest twitch at the corner of his lips, and knew he didn’t like my answer. “P-pale green! Gray vest!” I shouted around more water. “Collin, please!”

  Collin dipped his head in a slight nod, as if he was happy with what I’d suggested, and then his dead eyes finally met mine again. “You claimed you didn’t feel well after visiting your sister, so I decided to let you stay home. How horrible will it be for your parents when they find out you are the reason their youngest daughter has gotten into the drug scene? That your guilt over her near-death experience drove you to . . .” He smirked and clicked his tongue. “Well.”

  “Collin! Collin, no!” I screamed, and my thrashing increased.

  He leaned over the tub to kiss my forehead. All of his weight on my chest caused me to sink deeper and the air to rush out of me. I tried to grab at him, but I couldn’t get a good hold on him, and my panic was making me clumsy in my movements.

  “Collin! I’ll do whatever you want, be whatever you need,” I promised as water filled my mouth and slid down my throat. “Please don’t do this!”

  He used my chest as support to stand up, and shook his head once. “I love you,” he said in a detached voice before he released my chest.

  The last thing I remember was using what little energy I had left to push out of the water before he grabbed the side of my head and slammed it down onto the edge of the tub. I was sliding into the water when darkness pulled me into its arms.

  Chapter 17

  Knox

  Present Day—Thatch

  “STOP MURDERING THE damn carpet, Christ!” Graham yelle
d when he stepped inside the house a few hours after I’d snuck out Harlow’s back door.

  I turned and halted when I saw Grey and Jagger standing there with confused looks. Of course she would be here today.

  “Murdering the . . . what?” Grey finally asked before coming up to give me a hug. She must have noticed how tense I was, because she gave me a strange look when she backed away from me to go into her husband’s arms.

  “He’s always pacing when we come home. Always,” Graham answered as he walked into the living room. The look he gave me as he shouldered past me to sit on the couch let me know he knew exactly why I was pacing, and he wasn’t happy about it. He began divvying up the food that he’d carried in. “I brought you food, too,” he said to me.

  “Not hungry.”

  “Guilt eating at you?” he mumbled, and his eyes flashed up to me.

  My eyebrows pulled down low over my eyes, and I had to take a calming breath so I wouldn’t lash out at him in front of his sister and brother-in-law. “I’m not doing this today,” I said in a clipped tone, then turned and stalked to my room.

  Unfortunately, my pacing in that space consisted of two steps before turning to go back the opposite way, and within just a couple of minutes I felt like I needed to get out of there. I needed to get to Harlow, but I didn’t know where she was. I just knew they left, and I knew they had that dinner tonight, so there was no chance of me being able to get in touch with her in any way. But knowing she was with him, after I had found out how bad it had been all this time and how much worse it was getting, I hated every minute that passed without her by my side.

  It felt like each passing hour was taunting me, choking me. I had to find her. I had to save her. I had to get her away from that house and keep her from that bastard for the rest of her life. And I would do everything in my power to make sure that life was long.

  “Oh, Knox,” Grey said in a musical lilt as she walked into my room. Her eyes studied me as she leaned against a wall and absentmindedly played with her large stomach. “I’m actually on my way to work. Graham wanted to spend time with Jagger, and I wanted to see you and Deacon before I had to go in. But why do I have a feeling that Graham wanted Jagger here for a reason?”