“I love you, Yellow Crayon. Do you hear me? I love you.”
Suddenly, I’m in an unfamiliar living room on Tucker’s lap, his hands cupping my face. I want to say it back, but I’m not positive he means it. He might have just said what he thought would bring me out of my personal psychotic hell.
It worked.
“I found a key!” Rooster calls and runs into the room.
Zep walks over and crouches down, his voice soft and cautious. “Phoebe, babe, we need to… free you.”
Holding out my hands, I stay silent. All I can see is blood dripping down my arms as he tries the key to unlock the shackles.
The chains rest on the floor, and I stare in disbelief. Did they rip the chains out of the floor? They look broken, so they must have. That had to have taken so much strength.
The metal opens, and my wrists look horrifying. Cut and bloody, and I tilt my head. I should feel something. Pain. It looks terrible, but I just feel numb.
Tucker slips his left arm around my back and his right under my knees, and he walks briskly down the hallway. My heart races, panic starting again, but I breathe in relief when he sets me down on a toilet and digs through the medicine cabinet.
“You’ve lost more blood than I’d like,” he says, grabbing a towel and dampening it before touching my wrists. “I know it hurts, but I need to see how much damage there is.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” I say, my voice hoarse.
Screaming for however long I was down there probably has something to do with it.
Tucker smiles. “Hey, welcome back.”
“I must seem like a crazy woman to everyone, huh?” I ask, suddenly mortified.
Those men are Tucker’s friends and family. And I screamed like a banshee, completely feral. I just hope I didn’t hurt anyone.
“You seemed scared,” he says, his eyes on my wrists.
“I don’t blame you if you want to be done with me after all this,” I say, finally glancing down to my cut up arms. “This is the worst it’s ever been.”
Once the blood is cleaned up, the cuts don’t look too bad. Nothing that I think requires stitches.
“Didn’t you hear me?”
I blink and shake my head. “What?”
“Look at me, Phoebe.”
My heart races as I do, and I hate how nervous I am. There’s so much I want with this man, and I may have just ruined everything.
“I love you.”
“You weren’t just… trying to pull me out of my head.”
He cups my face again, and he rubs my cheek with his thumb. “I’ve known for a while, but something told me to wait until the time was right. This was the moment. I needed to save you from yourself, and I’m glad I waited.”
“You… you can’t love.”
“You’re the exception. You’remyexception. When I realized Ryan took you, I lost my fucking mind. And when I heard you screaming in the basement, I’m glad I killed him.”
My jaw drops. “You killed Ryan?”
“He said he’d killed you. I saw red, baby. No one hurts my Yellow Crayon.”
“Are you okay?”
