August 16, Sunday
Enoch
My knee bounced rapidly as I took in the unfamiliar neighborhood. The car rolled to a stop in front of a two-story home. I glanced back at Jae behind the wheel who gave me a tight-lipped smile.
“You ready?”
I swallowed, rubbing my eyes, trying to shake the feeling that this was all just a nightmare. Denial, it was like a drug, allowing me to cage in the pain that was threatening to cave my chest in. But we were here now, and I needed to keep fighting the urge to cry, the building scream in my chest that was fighting its way to the surface with each passing second. I was on the edge of a cliff, teetering along the edge of a freefall drop that I knew I wouldn’t survive.
Jae knew, like he always did, that I was hanging on by a thread. He’d purchased Benadryl at the airport the first time he caught me staring at the bar across from our gate. Forced two pills down my throat just before take-off so I’d hopefully sleep and avoid having a melt-down midflight. It worked. At least forhalf the flight. The adrenaline came back full force the second I woke up.
I sighed, like it might make it feel like I was taking a full breath, looking at the house once more.
I didn’t see a car in the driveway.
“Do you know if they’re home?”
Jae blew out a breath, eyeing the empty driveway.
“Only one way to find out.”
My palms were sweating, and I wiped them on my jeans.
I eyed the clock and quickly pulled my phone out. Bradley had left when I told him that we had landed. I didn’t have any notifications, but he said it would take him about two and a half hours to get here, to the hotel I’d booked a room at for tonight.
I released another sigh, the weight on my chest so heavy it felt like I couldn’t fill my lungs properly, before unbuckling my seatbelt and climbing out of the car. I stretched my arms above my head, my body sore from sitting for so long on the plane and then forty minutes from the airport to the house.
Jae’s car door slammed and I shook myself from my thoughts. He led the way to the front door, and my footsteps faltered, my heart pounding in my chest.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered, staring at the front door.
My mind flashed with the memory of Shiloh’s suicide, of the pain I felt then, how I didn’t want to keep going, how I replayed her voicemail for hours on end, cried myself to sleep for weeks.
I looked down, expecting to see a knife sticking out of chest, an explanation for the pain I was feeling.
Jae’s face flashed in my vision as he gripped my arms.
“Hey,” he said forcefully. “Breathe, Nox.”
“I can’t do this,” I repeated, staring into his eyes.
My vision filled with black dots, and I clutched my chest.
Fuck, if I hadn’t asked her stay, she’d never have left the program. She’d be safe right now.
He’s probably hurting her right now because I was too fucking selfish to let her go.
Her body filled my mind’s eye, crouched on my bedroom floor, sobbing, pleading, begging me not to put her in the bathtub.
“Breathe, brother.”
I crouched down, head between my hands, struggling to stop the assault on my chest.
It’s my fucking fault.
I should never have asked her to stay.
How did he fucking find her?
