My insides flip, puke rising in the back of my throat.
“What do you want from her?” I ask.
“She took some things from me, and if I don’t find her soon, I’ll be very inclined to return the favor,” he says. “This time, no one will interfere. Isn’t that right, Bonnie?”
“Leave me the fuck alone,” Bonnie spits at the phone.
“Ah, there you are.” He laughs. “I’ll see you onstage tomorrow, love. Maybe I’ll bring your wings.”
Bonnie snatches the phone from my hand, hits the end button, and hurls the device across the room before I can say another word. A gasp hiccups in her throat, and I can see her bottom lip begin to quiver as she says, “Like I said… it isn’t my stalker.”
“How many times has he called you?” I ask.
“Once,” she replies, fingers creasing on her hips. “The night before we went hiking.”
My brows lift. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. “That was days ago.”
I feel like such a fucking hypocrite.
“Maybe if you’d been with me that night, you’d already know,” she snaps.
I stare at her for a beat, knowing she’s doing this to hurt me, knowing this isn’t a real fight with her.
Stop trying to protect me.
I’m not the person you think I am.
“Bonnie—”
“It doesn’t fucking matter anymore,” she hisses, throwing her clothes in the bag now. “It doesn’t matter—”
“Of course, it matters,” I argue. “I need to know these things. I’m your—”
“My what?” she asks. “Mywhat, Gemma? My bodyguard? My girlfriend? My…friend?” She scoffs. “Maybe I didn’t know how to tell you. Maybe I wasn’t ready to talk about it.”
“What do you mean you didn’t know how to tell me? Someone threatened you—”
“Oh, and what was I supposed to say to you,huh?”
Her eyes are filled with tears, the pain and fear on her face enough to break me in half.
“What was I supposed to say to you? Was I supposed to say:hey, some guy called my phone and told me he had my fairy wings from the night I was drugged and gang raped on the dirty fucking floor of some club I don’t even remember the name of?!”
The words leave her trembling lips so quickly and so painfully that I stop breathing.
She lets out a jagged exhale, her shoulders dropping.
“Was I supposed to say that?” she asks through tears. “Was I supposed to just be okay with admitting that out loud to someone I… Someone I didn’t want to look at me likejust another fucking failure?”
A tear slips down my cheek as I look at her.
And suddenly killing Lance the other night doesn’t seem so horrible.
If I’d known she felt like this while I was fucking his face with that gun, I might have gone in harder. I might have cut him as he went down, and tortured him a little more.
Because looking at her like this might be what kills me.
The emotion in her eyes turns from anger to pure sadness. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to scare her. I wish I knew what she was thinking…
