“I mean, at least he’s not dead,” I offer.
“We wasted a lot of time thinking we were killers, though. Hey, that should give you some perspective.” She nudges me with her elbow.
“How do you figure?”
“You thought you were a murderer all these years you’ve been blending into society, you should be able to relate to him on some level, right?”
I’m gaping like a fish when my car pulls up to our left.
She giggles, leaning in to drop a kiss on my cheek. “Give yourself some grace. This is the first time I’ve seen you calm since before the accident.” She turns and walks toward her car, which beeps when she unlocks it.
“It’s the wine!” I yell over the curling breeze.
“It’s the dick!” she shouts back.
Shaking my head, I get into my Uber, thankful when the driver doesn’t speak a word to me.
There are too many thoughts in my head for idle chatter, and Allison’s given me even more shit to think about.
When I get home, the anxiety I had before is gone. I open the door and flick on the outside lights, leaning on the porch while I watch Bear use the bathroom and run around in fallen leaves.
Closing my eyes, I breathe in my new sense of calm, ignoring the way my chest burns at the loss of Koen. I can’t begin to unpack my feelings towards him or this situation.
I’m not a killer.
That’s something I’m still grappling with, so I don’t have time to dig into anything else beyond that.
One thing at a time.
“Come, Bear!” I shout, opening the front door.
He bounds up the porch, and I enter behind him, locking it behind me out of habit.
The only person I need to worry about keeping out is in jail. Even if he weren’t, a lock wouldn’t stop him.
I’m pretty sure he copied all my keys while I slept in a drug-induced haze.
I sigh, moving to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine, when I realize that’s another thing I have to process. He drugged me.
I’m ignoring the way my body responded to watching the videos of him fucking me while drugged completely.
I hesitate, eyeing my wine bottles dubiously.
These could all be laced.
I grumble before pouring them out.
A shopping trip is in order tomorrow, I’ll grab more then.
I turn to shut off the light over the stove, and I stop dead in my tracks.
“What the fuck?”
Sitting on the stove, placed in plain sight, are my devices, which Koen took from me when he took me from Allison’s house.
The AirTag sits in the middle of them, a smiley face drawn on it that’s winking up at me.
Grabbing my phone, I see that it’s fully charged. There are no texts or missed calls, only old shit from over two weeks ago when he took it from me.
