Resting my head against hers, I ponder our childhood. “I think that’s why I dreamed so hard for love and romance and something real. What we had was not real.Thisis real. And even though some of it hurts a lot, I would never go back to that hollow life.”
“Neither would I.”
Our thoughtful silence is broken by the sound of my stomach grumbling, then hers.
We laugh.
“Come on, let me cook dinner,” I say, pulling her up. “Something easy.” I eye her hopefully. “Unless you’re going to tell me you’re an amazing cook?”
“Me?” She snorts. “Why do you think I chose to live in a motel with a microwave and a mini-refrigerator? Give me a microwave dinner and takeout. I’ll pass you stuff, but cooking? No, thank you.”
Laughing, I lead the way so I can make pasta with a jar of pasta sauce. It’s the only thing I can make without setting fire to my kitchen.
Chapter 43
Torin
Amachine has been beeping at the same steady rhythm since we arrived.
Wires lead from the machine to Lottie, who sits cross-legged in a hospital bed, a stack of magazines we brought her on a bedside table, along with a bunch of sunflowers and a bulging bag of Swedish Fish—her favorites.
“How’s Juniper?” she asks once she’s filled us in on everything her doctors have been telling her.
“Good,” I say. “Her sister is living with her now.”
At least, I think she is.
I swung by her apartment building to check on her and saw Juniper sitting on the front step, laughing with her sister. Later, Archer saw them walking back to the building with takeout bags. And Callum said they were out in the street talking with some other people from the building. We take turns driving by, slowing our cars to a crawl, but we never stop.
Juniper needs to decide whether she sees a future with us. I want to believe we’ve done enough to convince her we will never hurt her again, but I’m not sure we have.
“She’ll forgive you,” Lottie says, blue eyes bright with optimism.
“Sure, she will.” Maybe she could forgive Callum and Archer, but it’s me she can’t forgive, and that’s why she walked away. As I get to my feet, I pretend I don’t see the look of concern she shoots Callum. “I’m heading back to the house. I’ll swing by again soon, Lottie.”
We say our goodbyes, and I hug her and leave.
Archer and Callum will sit with her for a bit longer. I’m ready to be alone to ruminate over every cruel word I flung at Juniper. And there were a lot of them.
But Lottie is doing better, and faster than any of us ever dared to hope. There’s a big reason for that.
Turns out that if you convince someone that they need a drug to keep breathing, they’re a much better hostage, especially when that same drug they think they need is the thing keeping them sick in the first place.
If Callum’s dad weren’t already dead, with the rest of our families locked up, probably for the rest of their lives, it wouldn’t have been Kylian putting a gun to his head and burying a bullet in his brain. It would have been me.
The machines monitor Lottie’s heart as the doctors remove all traces of the drugs she’s been taking for years. She’s probably well enough to leave, but the doctors want to make sure the drug didn’t do any lasting damage to her organs before she’s released.
The skies open as I slide behind the wheel of my car and slam the door shut. I sit with my hands wrapped around the wheel, staring up at the dark gray clouds. It’s depressing as fuck, and the shit weather is doing nothing to improve my mood.
Shaking off my moroseness, I start the engine, snap on my seatbelt, and turn left when I want to go right to pass by Juniper’s apartment building again. She said she needed time to figure things out, and constantly driving past her apartment is not giving her that time. If anything, it’s venturing into stalker-ish behavior.
Rain hammers my windshield as I pull my car to a stop outside our new house. I’m digging around in the glove compartment, trying to remember if I even have an umbrella, when my gaze snags on a figure shivering near the front door.
Afamiliarfigure.
I’m out of my car, the engine running and the door wide open as I charge toward Juniper with no conscious memory of unbuckling my seatbelt.
“Juniper? What is it? Is something wrong?” I grasp the tops of her arms as I sweep my gaze over her, searching for a reason she’s here in sandals, a skirt, and a t-shirt, with no sign of a coat.
