Before she could question that statement, he grabbed her face again, gentler this time, thumbs warm on her cheeks. “I’m sorry I left,” he said, and it sounded like it hurt. “I was delayed. Out of my hands. I couldn’t come back until I had what I needed. It was too important.”
Her trust in him was cracked but not shattered. Not yet. If Alex believed she was in real danger, he’d burn the world down to stop it.
“What could be that important?” she whispered. “More important than being there when I walked out of hell?”
His hands stayed on her face, his thumbs moving in slow, soothing circles that made her want to both melt and bite him.
“We’ve known each other our whole lives. Trust me,” he said. “I wouldn’t have disappeared if it didn’t have everything to do with keeping you safe.”
“I don’t need you to keep me safe. I’ve been underground. Hiding. Selling myself to stay off the grid. I had it handled.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yet I found you anyway.”
“But why did you have to leave me in the dark for this long?”
“I stayed away because I was looking for answers. And I found one I wish I hadn’t.” He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. The smell of smoke crept into her mind without warning. She smelled burned wood and carpet. It was the same phantom scent that woke her at night.
“Spit it out,” Audrey said.
“Your mother is alive.” Alex hesitated. “She’s coming for you.”
The world didn’t tilt—it split. Her breath wouldn’t come.
Alex shoved her inside the car, and Audrey let him. All her limbs were numb.
The man in the club and the voice in her head. Alex, standing in front of her as if he’d walked into a moment he already understood. And now, her mother was out there, alive. She was being hunted by forces no one else believed existed, and each piece was aligned, but she couldn’t see the bigger picture. One fact was certain, though—she’d been moving through someone else’s carefully designed plan and not randomly falling apart.
As they pulled away from the curb, she put her forehead against the cool glass of the window, then narrowed her eyes.
Across the street in the dark, Audrey felt the presence of a mind fixed on hers.
7
Audrey climbed out, knuckles white on the cab door.
The pavement shifted, and the comedown fog obscured the lamplights behind her eyes. Audrey caught her image in the cab window—her eyes shone with a strange gleam. Alone at night, dogs would flinch or snarl before she was near. The world sensed what she kept hidden deep: this was someone who did not quite belong.
Alex came around the car. He didn’t hover, and he didn’t touch her.
“How can you be sure about her?” she asked, moving closer, close enough that she was able to feel the heat of his breath on her cheek. “She’s been dead for ten years. I was there, remember?”
Alex faltered. His uncertainty, rare for someone so deliberate, surprised her.
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” he said. “And I didn’t want this in your head if someone got inside it.” The words slid under her flesh like splinters, pain prickling under her composed exterior.
Her apartment building rose above them, its glass and brick looming in the humid night. Hundreds of minds buzzed in her skull. Crossing the lobby, voices upstairs spiked, tangling into harsh white noise in her head.
Should we have steak or pasta tonight?
Where is Martin? He should be home by now…
I forgot to…
Her comedown made it worse. While drugs had muted the noise, now, everything crashed back at once. She stopped, scanning mirrors and doors. The sensation of being followed tingled at her neck. Nails dug into her hand. She hadn't imagined it. Had the killer followed them?
They needed to move—immediately.
Alex was unaware of the rush of minds. He moved through the lobby, unfazed, focus fixed forward, a difference she’d always noticed. Audrey put her hands to her eyes, as if to smear the thoughts away. The thoughts multiplied, clashing like wild radio stations, impossible to silence.
