I’m never, never going to be free
Until I die,
Or they capture me.
I’m not sure what ending’s worse.
Chapter 2
Ayden
Four hours later, I’m in the police station with Lila and Ethan, waiting for Detective Rannali—the person working my brother’s murder case and my sister’s kidnapping—to come speak with us about what happened tonight.
“I wish this could have just waited until morning.” Lila restlessly jiggles her foot up and down as she scans the busy room full of officers. She has flour on her jeans and shirt because she was cooking for a wedding she’s catering when she received the call to come here. “It’s too late for him to be out on a school night.”
“Honey, I think, considering what happened, it’s good that they want to tackle this tonight.” Ethan places his hand on her knee to settle her. “Be thankful they’re not shoving it aside.”
“I am.” She ceases bouncing her leg. “I’m just really tired of all of this and those damn people. Why can’t they just leave us alone?” Regret fills her eyes as she looks over at me “Sorry, I know I’m making this worse.”
“You don’t need to apologize.” I slump back in the seat. “Besides, I’m the one making this worse. I brought this on everyone.”
“Don’t you dare say that,” she starts to protest, but stops talking when Detective Rannali strolls up.
His white, button-down shirt is wrinkled, his tie crooked, and his hair is disheveled. “Sorry to make you wait. It’s been a long day.” He nods his head at his office door. “Come inside. There’s some stuff I’d like to talk to you about.”
The three of us simultaneously rise to our feet, file into his office, and take a seat in front of his desk. Once everyone gets settled, he opens a folder that contains the note I found tonight.
“So, ever since this all started, we’ve been wondering why the Soulless Mileas are so fixated on you—leaving notes, stealing your knife, taking your hair—yet they never actually make any threatening moves. We’ve had some theories, but we couldn’t be positive.” He glances from the note to me. “This note is starting to confirm our suspicions.”
“And what are you suspicious of?” Lila asks, grasping onto Ethan’s hand for support.
She has been doing that a lot lately, revealing just how much stress this ordeal has been putting on her. It makes me feel so damn guilty all the time because it’s my fault. I brought these people into their lives. I brought the stress into their lives.
The detective closes the folder and overlaps his hands on top of it. “When I was first put on your sister’s case,” he speaks directly to me, “I remembered interviewing this woman in the neighborhood who believed the people who took Sadie stalked her first. She reported seeing people breaking into the house. I didn’t look into it too much, because the source had ended up being highly unreliable. But, over the last few weeks, I’ve been noticing a pattern.”
“They’re doing the same thing to me.” My fingers curl around the armrests of the chair, and my fingernails scrape at the wood. “And, eventually, they’re going to try and take me.”
Lila gasps, covering her hand over her mouth. “That’s not what’s going on,” she says in denial.
“I never said that,” the detective says with caution. “I just said that there are some similarities between your case and your sister’s. And the note, well, it’s just more proof that you need to start being extremely careful.”
“How can I be more careful?” I ask, dumbfounded. “I already spend no time alone. There’s an alarm in the house. My therapist walks me to my car.”
“We’ll do more to keep him safe.” Lila places a hand on mine. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not.” I stand up, ignoring their protests to come back as I exit the office.
I want to walk out the front door of the station and just start running until my legs give out. Run away until I feel safe. But nowhere is safe, and running away is only going to put me in harm’s way. So, instead, I wait for Lila and Ethan by the glass entrance doors. They don’t show up for another thirty minutes, and by then, Lila looks like she’s been crying.
“Is everything all right?” I ask her as she strides up to me.
“Everything’s great.” She folds her arms around me and yanks me close, despite my rigidness. “Everything will be okay.”
Lies. Lies.
Everyone lies.
Lies to save me.
Lies to break me.
Lies to make me ache.
How many more lies are in my future?
“What do we do now?” I ask Ethan from over Lila’s shoulder as she continues to hug me so tightly I can barely breathe.
“The only thing we can do,” he replies, wrapping an arm around his wife. “Go home and make a plan that will keep you safe.”
I nod in agreement for his benefit. But no matter how many plans they make, I’ll never truly be safe.
Those that step in, never get out.
Never, ever, ever.
Chapter 3
Lyric
The most depressing song of all time is playing from the surround sound. Definitely not my choice of music, especially when so much dreariness haunts Ayden’s life already. Every day, he’s plagued by the fact that the same people who kidnapped him and his siblings over four years ago are holding his sister. The same people have also been tormenting him for the last several months by breaking into his house, stealing his hair, and as of three days ago, leaving him creepy notes in his car.
With my sketchpad propped open on my lap, I stare across the room at him, assessing the pain he tries to keep hidden while drawing the shadows of his smoldering dark eyes framed by the longest, darkest eyelashes I’ve ever seen.
Today, he’s dressed in all black and sporting the leather bracelets that match mine—Christmas presents we gave to each other a few months ago. Each stroke of my pencil captures the pain concealed below the surface of his strength.
As I’m shading his eyes, the iPod shifts to the next song, which turns out to be equally as energy draining as the first.
“Who picked out this playlist?” I climb off the sofa and pad over to the stereo that’s below the flat screen mounted on the wall.
Ayden peers up from the notebook he’s been scribbling in for over the last hour, sweeping wisps of his inky black hair out of his eyes. “I thought you did.”
“Yeah, right. These songs are too depressing for me to be listening to at the moment.” I frown at the stereo. “My mom must have turned it on before she took out the sugar junkie clan for dessert.”
The Gregory’s kids are staying over for the night while Ethan and Lila are away at their son, Everson’s, football game. At fourteen-years-old, Everson is living his dream already, playing quarterback for the middle school league. While the Gregorys wanted to take the whole clan with them, they thought it’d be best if they stayed behind, considering it’s a school night. Lila acted like a nervous wreck when they dropped everyone off and gave my mother an hour-long lecture about keeping Ayden in the house at all times with the alarm on and an adult always around.
After dinner, my mom suggested everyone go get ice cream, but Ayden and I stayed behind with my dad who retired to his office about thirty minutes ago to put together a band line-up for his club.
I tap the skip button, moving to the next song, “My Heroine” by Silverstein. “Much better.”
“Much better?” Ayden cocks his brow. “It’s as slow as the last one playing.”
I hold up a finger. “Give it a minute.” I sway my hips to the slow rhythm of the song while sweeping my hands through my hair. When the tempo quickly picks up, I grin cockily at Ayden. “See. Much better.”
He chuckles, a rare but breathtaking sound. Then he sets his pen and paper aside on the coffee table and stretches his arms above his head. “Do I lose points against me for not knowing that?”
“Hmmm . . .??
? I thrum my finger on my bottom lip as I amble across the living room toward him. “I might consider letting you keep all your points for a small fee, of course.”
“And what’s the fee?” he asks, mildly amused.
I straddle his lap and announce my fee with my actions. He briefly tenses from the contact then relaxes when I tangle my fingers through his hair.
“There. Much better,” I whisper. “I don’t like you being so far away.”
He offers me a small smile. “I wanted to sit by you, but I worried your dad would maybe get mad or something.”
“That we were sitting on the couch together?”
“I don’t know . . . yeah. I mean, I worried maybe they’ll figure out we have something going on.”
“Have something going on?” I playfully tease. “I’m not sure what you mean. What’s going on?”
He stares at me, unimpressed. “I mean our relationship that they don’t know about yet.”
“Oh, right. I completely forgot about that.” I smile innocently at him, and he pinches my side, causing me to yelp. “No fair.” I pinch him back, right on his chest.
Tension ripples through his body as he stiffens from my unexpected touch.
“Sorry.” I quickly apologize. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I-it’s okay,” he stammers through a loud exhale. Then he takes my hand and lines my palm right over his thundering heart. “You just surprised me. That’s all . . . You can . . . I’m fine with you touching me on the outside of my shirt. You know that, right?” His off-pitch tone reveals exactly how difficult it is for him to say that.
Touching Ayden is a gift.
One I’m grateful he gives me.
I just wish I could have it all the time.
Every day and night.
On and on and on.
Forever.
I lean forward and place a kiss on his lips. His breathing accelerates as he grasps onto my hips, and I smile to myself, secretly loving that I can make him react like that.
“Maybe we shouldn’t do this here,” he mutters as I kiss him again. “Your dad’s in the next room, and your mom could walk in at any moment.”
“Don’t worry about them.” I rock my hips against his, eliciting a groan from him. “Only stop if you want to stop.”
Please, please, don’t stop.
Ever, ever, ever.
His protests shift into throaty moans as he deepens the kiss, entangling our tongues, tasting me deeply while his hands travel up and down my sides. His fingers trace each bump of my ribs before drifting down to the hem of my black and purple dress. His fingers tremble as he fiddles with the bottom, something he usually does.
Having more than likely suffered from sexual abuse while being kidnapped, intimacy is complicated with Ayden. Touching me is less of a problem than getting touched himself, but he’s always a bit unsettled.
“Do we need to slow down?” I ask then steal another taste of his lips.
“I don’t know.” He puts a sliver of space between our mouths, breathing hotly against my lips. “It’s getting easier. Sort of. I mean, I don’t panic as much, and I feel like I want . . .” He trails off, his eyes glazed over and pupils dilated, as if he’s high from the kiss.
High on our kiss.
Dazed by our connection
And the overpowering heat
Of our bodies,
Our souls.
Intoxicated by love.
God, how I wish,
Wish that were the truth.
After searching my eyes, his lips return to mine, and his hand slides underneath my dress, silently answering my question. I fall into his touch, desperately tumbling into a place I once dreamed about but now know exists.
Love.
I’m pretty sure I’m in love with Ayden, but fear has stopped me from telling him, terrified that my declaration will freak him out.
He cups my ass, pushing me closer until our bodies conform. I slide my arms around him then trace my fingers up and down the nape of his neck, kissing him with everything I’m feeling, hoping it’ll be enough to get it out of my system.
When his mouth leaves mine, I make a raspy protest, but words get lost as he places tender kisses down my jawline to my neck. He sucks and nips on the flesh, causing my body to swelter with overbearing heat.
“Ah . . . This feels so good,” I moan with my head tipped back, clutching onto his shoulders and wishing the moment would never end.
But as soon as the wish surfaces, the front door opens, the alarm goes off, and the moment goes poof. We scramble apart, breathless, our clothes and hair in disarray. I stumble across the room back to the sofa, smoothing my dress back into place. Dropping down on the cushion, I quickly scoop up my sketchpad and pencil right as the alarm gets shut off.
My mother, Fiona, and Everson enter the living room from the foyer while my father comes hurrying in from the hallway.
“What’s going on?” he asks as he rushes in. “Why’s the alarm going . . . ?” He trails off when he sees my mom. “That was a quick trip.”
“Yeah, we just went through the drive-thru.” My mother gives a suspicious glance between Ayden and me. “What have you two been up to?”
Shrugging, I press the tip of my pencil against the drawing. “Nothing. Just chillin’.”
“Sure you were.” She exchanges a look with my father, and for a flash of an instant, I wonder if they know exactly what Ayden and I were up to. “Did you check on them at all while I was gone?”
My dad shrugs at her. “Not really, but the alarm was set so I’d know if they tried to leave.”
“I’m not worried about them leaving.”
“Then what are you worried about?”
Hello, Captain Oblivious. Even I get what she’s worried about.
She presses him with a look, but he still appears lost, either clueless about what my mom’s implying or unwilling to accept it.
“I have a few things I’ve got to take care of,” he says to her, backing out of the room. “Meet you upstairs in, like, twenty minutes?”
My mom heaves an exhausted sigh. “All right.”
He waggles his eyebrows at her, and then the two of them exchange a look meant only for them to see, even though there’s a room full of eyes.
“Wow, way to be obvious, you two,” I say to break the awkward silence in the room.
My mother shoots me a dirty look, and I flash her a smirk.
“She’s just like you,” she tells my dad. “You know that, right?”
“I do.” He grins, pleased. “And I’ll take that as the highest compliment.” He winks at me before turning and disappearing down the hallway.
My mom brushes her auburn hair off her shoulder then turns to me. “I’m going to go upstairs to take a shower. Try to behave. And have everyone in bed within the next hour.”
I give her a salute. “Yes, boss.”
She rolls her eyes but smiles before walking off toward the stairway. Moments later, I hear the alarm beep, meaning she set it.
Once all the parentals are out of the room, Fiona, the youngest of the Gregorys, plops down on the sofa beside Ayden. Kale hurries up to me, hands me a bowl of caramel swirled ice cream, then sits down on the armrest.
“I brought you ice cream.” She gives Ayden one of the cups. “I got cookie dough because I know it’s your favorite.”
Ayden stares at the bowl with his brows knit. “How’d you know it’s my favorite?”
Fiona rolls her eyes. “You think you’re so mysterious, Ayden, but let me tell you, you kind of aren’t.” She shovels a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth then flashes him a grin. “You said something about it being your favorite during your birthday.”
“Did I?” Ayden wonders, diving into his ice cream. “I don’t remember telling anyone that.”
“You told Lyric, just like you tell her every other secret of yours.” She kicks her feet up onto the coffee table with a sassy smirk on her face.
Ayd
en and I share an amused look because Fiona is a typical thirteen-year-old—full of rebellion, a sassy attitude, and keeps everyone on their toes.