She pauses just outside his bedroom door, takes a deep breath, then shoves it open to move inside.
I’ve only been in here once since he passed, but as I step through the doorway, it’s as though I’m stepping back eighteen years. Everything is dust-covered, but it’s the same. Right down to the dirty laundry off to one side and the empty beer bottles scattered on the floor and bed. I try not to pay any attention to the dark urine stain on the mattress or the haphazard way the blankets are strewn about. Tessa lived in this nightmare every day.
And from the way it sounds, she’s still living one. It’s different, sure, but still a nightmare.
Tessa walks over toward the closet and reaches up, stretching up onto the toes of her uninjured leg and feeling the shelf. Because she’s going to hurt herself, I move around her and reach up with ease, retrieving the shoebox she was reaching for.
She glares at me when I hand it to her.
Moving across the room, she sets the box down on top of a nightstand, its varnish chipped and worn. Removing the lid, she takes a stack of dusty cash and a bone-handled revolver. After tucking the money into the pocket of her sweats and the gun into her jacket pocket, she abandons the box.
“I can’t believe that’s still there,” I say honestly.
“Even dead, no one wanted anything from him,” she says, tone sharp as razor blades. “People could sense the darkness in this place without ever setting foot in it. Even door-to-door salesmen weren’t that desperate.” Without another word, she moves out of the room, favoring her leg so much that she takes a pause in the hallway and lets out a deep breath.
“Let me help you.”
Tessa stiffens, likely because she didn’t realize I was standing so close—but I can’t help it. Like the moon controls the tide, the hold Tessa still has on me seems unbreakable. It’s always been that way. My instant connection to her has never made sense, but it’s also the only thing that does.
Light fills the room as lightning strikes just outside. The thunder comes less than a second later, and it’s so loud it shakes the trailer. Still, I can hear my own heart thundering above anything else.
Tessa’s gaze never strays from mine. She pins me with an intensity that steals my breath. Desperate to pull her into my arms, I clench both hands into fists at my sides and try to remind myself that this woman left me at the altar.
She abandoned our future before we even had a chance at one.
The rain starts, its deafening drumming against the sides of the metal trailer drowning out even the sound of my own breathing.
But Tessa’s gaze remains—so does mine.
“I don’t need help,” she replies, yelling so I can hear her over the storm.
The trailer shakes with the force of the wind as it picks up outside.
“No, you never did, right? Isn’t that what you said back at the hospital?”
She opens her mouth to respond, her cheeks flushing with color. But a second later, that fight dies, and her expression turns defeated. “I need to leave.” She continues forward, dodging the hole, so I do the same, moving in her wake.
“Do you really think they’re just going to leave you alone?” I demand. “Whoever this is will find you, Tessa. You’re not safe.”
“Do you really think I don’t know that?” she demands, whirling back on me. We’re in the living room now, and the only light sneaks in through broken windows. Rain falls in sheets just outside, the wind blowing it in and saturating my shirt.
“Tessa—”
“No.” She points her finger at me. “I’m sorry I got on your boat, but I didn’t ask for your help. I answered your questions, and now I need to go. I need distance from this place. From—” Her gaze lands on me, and she doesn’t have to finish the sentence.
“From me.”
Tessa’s gaze darts away before resting back on me. “Yes.”
I move in closer. “And why is that? Because the idea of being near me is so appalling to you?” Anger laces my tone. How could she say that? Why does she hate me so much?
“Being near you—” Glass shatters, and I throw Tessa to the floor before my mind has even registered the bullets raining down on us. She screams as I cover her with my body and withdraw the pistol holstered at my waist.
Thanks to the storm, I can’t even hear the weapon being fired, but with how quickly they’re coming—I know it’s got to be an automatic with extended magazines for minimal load time.
Adrenaline coursing through my system, I shut down my fear for Tessa and focus only on the mission. We need an exit. Now. I scan the dark trailer, searching for any way out, but see none. And as thin as these walls are? We’re as good as dead if these bullets keep putting fresh holes into them.
My gaze lands on the hole in the floor.
