I carry her to the bed and sink down with her, wrapping my arms around her.Her ear presses over my heart and I know she feels how hard it’s still pounding, for her, not from fear.
The want doesn’t fade, it just settles.
“He’s not done,” she says after a long moment.
“No.”I thread our fingers together because it feels like the truest damn thing in my life.“But neither are we.”
I map out the plan in my mind—lights, locks, neighbors, cops, documentation.Protection that isn’t loud and bloody but relentless and boring and effective.Kryptonite built out of paper.
She looks at our joined hands like we’re something sacred.Then she squeezes.
“I’m glad you’re here early this time,” she says softly.
The past punches through me, Rae’s face, too late, too quiet, but I stay steady because Olivia deserves steady.
“So am I,” I say.And I mean it with everything I am.
Chapter Nine
Say My Name While You Break
Olivia
There’s a moment after fear breaks when your body doesn’t know what to do with itself.Everything feels too loud.Too bright.Too alive.
I spent years shrinking myself down to survive, softening my voice, smoothing my edges, making myself smaller so he wouldn’t notice when I breathed wrong.
Tonight, I feel ...big.
Darren hasn’t moved far from me since the porch, hovering, but not hovering.Present without smothering.An entire thunderstorm wrapped in self-control.
Somewhere along the line my stomach grumbles and we end up eating in the kitchen.Once we’re done, Aunt Dee shoos us down the hallway with the sacred authority of a woman armed with chamomile tea and judgment.
“Go,” she says, swatting his arm.“You both look like live wires.Go sit.Go ...talk.”
Her pause is pointed.Her eyebrow is louder than her mouth.
