“Leigh. She broke in. I’m sitting on top of her. A knife to her neck. She can’t leave this house with her life. This is my home. Our home,” I rambled as Ollie muffled the phone and talked low to someone else to call the police. “Ollie?”
“I’m right here. I’m on my way. Listen to me, Mia, I’m begging you. Don’t do this and stay with me on the phone,” his voice was frantic, and Leigh swallowed with tears staining her cheeks. “Are you listening to me?”
A beat passed, and Leigh wiggled under me to try to break free. I pressed the edge of the blade against her flesh, and the teeth bit into her skin. Blood trickled down her throat onto the tile. Leigh stopped. “Yeah,” I whispered.
“Close your eyes, baby,” he calmly said. “Are they closed?” I slammed my eyes closed and tried to inhale through my nose as I fought the urge to cut deeper. I nodded, but he couldn’t see and continued anyway, “Over two years ago, back in my dorm, you came through the vent with this crazy belief that kissing was more intimate than sex. Do you remember?”
I nodded, sniffling.
“Mia?”
“I remember.”
Ollie let out a breath. “Then you slid over my lap, and my heart stopped inside my chest. I couldn’t think. I could hardly breathe, love. But when your eyes hit mine, a change happened. Inside you. Inside me. Your eyes, they lit up, and I was no longer afraid. You went on, talking about science and this forbidden kiss, and all I could think about was the fact you eventually would be gone, and the panic returned. I never wanted to lose that contact. I never wanted to be without you,” he choked and paused to take a breath. “I dragged you closer, laid my head to yours, living in that moment for as long as possible. Because you managed to give me something I’d been searching for my entire life, Mia. You gave me you, all of you, without even realizing it,”—chaos erupted as police broke through the door, guns raised, and the knife slipped from my trembling hand onto the tile as I fell back against the counter with the phone clutched to my ear, tears spilling from my eyes— “The funny thing about it all, you were wrong all along, love. Sex, a kiss … it took way less than that. I only said those things at the time … Because, so badly, I just wanted to kiss you.”
Men in suits and gear dragged Leigh away while another one gripped my arm and pulled me off the floor. The phone dropped, breaking once it hit the tile.
Blue lights flashed up and down our street from outside and through the windows of my home. I sat over my couch with two officers standing before me, questioning me about what happened with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders.
It wasn’t but minutes later when Ollie ran through the front door. He pushed through the two officers and crouched down before me, wordlessly examining my face, my eyes, with worry and terror etched in his. “Mia?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t do it.”
Ollie grabbed the back of my head and kissed my forehead before our heads connected. And we stayed like that for a moment, my body still trembling from the close call until the officer cleared his throat and dropped his card over the coffee table. “If you have any questions, here’s my number.”
“What will happen to her?” I asked, and Ollie stood and sat over the arm of the couch beside me, his hand never leaving mine.
The cop closed his spiral notepad and adjusted the hat over his head. “It’s too soon to say, but from what I can see, there may be a chance for Leigh. She’ll most likely end up at the reformatory school in Guildford—Dolor.”
A week had passed.Refusing to go to the emergency room, Mia healed on her own. My little explosion of hope. I could never fathom or understand the internal struggle she’d faced at that moment, the need to kill when your entire being had been threatened in your own home, but she had been strong enough to fight it, and that, I was sure she’d always been capable of.
We were halfway to Christmas, and Dex hadn’t made the call yet or gone over the plan. The police had arrested Leigh, which put a kink in his plan, and if he’d known, he would’ve called. Either way, we couldn’t use her anymore. But with or without Leigh, I was prepared to use the bullet I’d saved. I was still ready to kill Ghost more than ever. It was the only way.
“What about this one?” Mia asked, standing beside a Christmas tree. Rosy cheeks, hidden eyes behind large black glasses, and hair piled high, I admired how tiny she stood against the monster of a tree. Mia’s fingers tugged the frosted branches, and ice chips fell from the tree. “Think it’ll fit inside the door?”
“No, definitely not,” I said through a chuckle. Mia frowned, wearing black jeans, combat boots, and a large grey trench coat over a plain black hoodie. The sun would set soon, and we didn’t have much time. “Think small, love. We’ll put it in front of the window in the living room, yeah?”
“The one by the piano?”
I shook my head. “On the other side of the front door. Closer to our room.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay,” Mia jumped in front of another tree, “this one!”
The tree had half the height and half the life, but it would fit. I walked toward her. “You’re sure? This is the one you want?”
Mia bounced on her toes, the daylight dying. “Yes, now let’s go.” She blew hot air into her hands and tightened the coat around her. “It’s bloody cold out here.”
I chuckled. “Stick with your accent, love. The only British in you is me.”
The chap at the tree farm had helped tie the tree on top of the old station wagon, and it held steady the entire way back to our cottage. I’d set up the tree in the corner by the window, and Mia sat on the floor with decorations she’d collected over this past week from the village scattered around her. She’d changed out of her jeans into pajama pants, Christmas socks warming her feet.
Flames danced in the fireplace, heating the small house as old Christmas tunes played from the record player, and I was in the kitchen, making homemade hot chocolate using the milk chocolate bars I’d picked up from a shop in London. Once done, I topped both mugs off with candy canes and walked back into the living room where Mia had the corner of the ornament box between her teeth.
“Is it giving you a hard time?” I asked, chuckling, and walking toward her, but I knew better than to help her. For the most part, Mia was determined and never asked for help, wanting to do everything on her own.
She growled into the box, and I sipped from my mug while handing her the other.
After a back and forth battle between Mia and the packaging, I strung the lights around the tree and pulled out a box of our things from Dolor. Between the two of us, we’d saved every origami rose I’d given her. But the one that we hung first, was the one she’d ripped apart and I’d pieced back together again. The rose rested in the middle of the tree, and I looked over at her to see tears in her eyes.
