As he says it, I can see the determination return to his eyes, and I know he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The plateof egg and avocado toast I’ve made for Amelia is balanced on my arm as I knock on the door of our spare room. Without waiting for a response, I walk in, expecting to see her still curled up in bed. It’s almost noon, but I wanted to let her sleep. She did almost the whole day yesterday already, but Morgan said the rest would be good for her head.
And I need her to be good again as soon as possible.
My heart skips a beat when I find the room empty, the bed neatly made, as if it hadn’t been slept in at all.
“Princess?” I call out, setting the plate on the desk with shaky hands. Panic starts to bubble up inside me, threatening to overflow, and I fumble for my phone, frantically checking the tracker app I installed.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter under my breath, cursing myself for letting my guard down.
How can she be gone?
I was just in the kitchen, for fuck’s sake.
Has somebody snuck in to get her?
My mind races with horrific scenarios, each worse than the last. Images of Amelia hurt, scared, or worse flash through my head, making me feel sick to my stomach.
I spent all yesterday combing through files, checking if her work had been uploaded to the cloud like Jamie has, trying to trace any sign of her laptop. I thought I was being thorough, vigilant. But I haven’t found shit and now, standing in this empty room, it feels like I’ve failed her even more.
The tracker pings, showing Amelia’s location right here in the apartment. Relief washes over me for a split second before I spot her phone on the nightstand, innocently charging away.
The panic comes rushing back, stronger than before, like a tidal wave threatening to drown me. “Amelia!” I yell, my voice cracking with fear. I’m certain she’s gone, taken right under my nose while I was making her fucking breakfast.
The en suite door bursts open with a cloud of steam. Amelia rushes out sans glasses, wrapped in nothing but a fluffy white towel, her damp hair clinging to her face and neck.
Her stormy blue eyes are wide with concern as she asks, “What happened?”
The relief that floods through me is overwhelming, like a dam breaking. I throw my phone on the bed, cross the room in two strides, and pull her into my arms, hugging her tightly against my chest. I bury my face in the crook of her neck, breathing in the clean scent of her skin and my shampoo, feeling her warmth against me.
“I thought I’d lost you,” I murmur against her shoulder. “I came in, and you weren’t here. I just… I panicked.”
Amelia’s hands stroke my back, her touch soothing. The gentle pressure of her fingertips traces patterns along my spine, sending a wave of calm through my tense muscles.
“I’m right here,” she murmurs, her breath warm against my ear. I hold her even tighter, unable to let go just yet. My arms tremble slightly as I pull her closer as if she might disappear if I loosen my grip even a fraction. “I’m fine, really,” she insists.
There’s a hint of concern in her tone, and I can picture the worried crease between her brows without even looking. I have to explain myself to her, or she’ll think I’ve lost it.
Maybe I have.
“When I was seven, I snuck away from Grandpa to watch my parents on the news. They were reporting from the middle of a war zone.” My voice catches, the memory still raw after all these years, but I push on. “All of a sudden, bombs started going off. I watched live as smoke and debris engulfed them before the stream cut out abruptly.” The image flashes in my mind as vivid as the day it happened.
Amelia’s hands still on my back, and she tenses against me. Her breath hitches, and I know she’s imagining the scene, trying to put herself in my shoes.
“I thought I’d just watched them die on live TV,” I continue, the words heavy with long-buried emotion. “We didn’t know they were alive until days later.”
Those days of uncertainty had been the longest of my life.
That’s all I could think about when I saw Amelia lying on the floor through the monitor. I wanted to reach through and get to her, just like I wanted to get to my parents then.
My hands cup her shoulders, thumbs brushing against her collarbones, needing the physical connection to ground myself.
“Grey,” Amelia breathes out. “I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head, my thumb reaching up to brush her cheek. “I’m not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me. I want you to understand why I’m like this. Why I have problems with overprotecting the people I love. I feel like I have to. I can’t just stand by and do nothing. I need to protect you.” The words tumble out, raw and honest, laying my vulnerabilities bare.
