I try to call out for help, for Hudson, for anyone. But my lips won’t work, as the world slips out of reach.
I want to fight, but my muscles won’t work. The pain at my neck throbs, and everything slows even more.
I wonder if Hudson is looking for me. The memory of his hand on my back, his body between me and the world, flashes behind my eyelids.
Shadows appear at the edge of my vision. I think I hear my name, but it’s too far. Someone’s dragging me; my heels are scraping against the tile. Hands grip under my arms.
Sweat.
Cologne.
Both scents are familiar.
I can’t move. I can’t scream.
I want to go back, to try again, to choose a different life.
All that’s left now is the sensation of falling, and the hope that someone will find me before it’s too late.
11
HUDSON
She’s still out cold,curled on her side in my old flannel sheets, her breathing slow and even. The sun’s barely up, pale light sneaking in through the old, cracked blinds. I haven’t slept. And I don’t think I could if I wanted to. Adrenaline is still burning in my veins. I keep playing the whole incident over and over—kidnapping her, dragging her here. Every line I swore I’d never cross… gone.
All I’ve done is sit here and watch her sleep. Taking in the way her lashes are long and dark against her cheek, how her mouth parts as she breathes. Her face holds so much innocence that makes my gut twist. She has no idea that it was me who took her from the gala, that I’m the one who crossed that line.
My chest aches. I trace the lines of her face with my eyes like I’ve done so many times these past few days. Re-memorizing every curve, every freckle, every tiny scar her family’s world was supposed to keep hidden. My fingers itch to reach out and touch her cheek.
But I don’t. I keep my hands to myself.
She should be waking up soon, and when she does, she’s probably going to hate me for this. And maybe she should.
The old clock on the wall keeps ticking away the time with its steady rhythm. I check my watch for the hundredth time, counting the minutes since we arrived. The sedative should be wearing off any minute now. I can still feel the way her body went limp in my arms in that hallway, the sick feeling at what I’ve done.
My phone vibrates again, the screen lighting up with another string of messages from Vance at HPG.
“Where the fuck are you, Reed?”
“Why isn’t Miss Ashford answering her phone? Call me or you’re done.”
The words, threats, demands all blur together in my head.
Fuck all of them.
I turn the phone off and toss it onto the old kitchen table. No one’s coming for us here, not unless I want them to. I’d burn the world down before I let them take Ivory back to that prison they call ‘a life,’ before I hand her over to Crest or her father or anyone else who ever looked at her like she was a piece of property.
The silence in the cabin is thick. I move to the window, check the tree line for the hundredth time. Finding nothing but birds and the wind. I know nobody followed us last night, the whole time keeping my eyes peeled for unwanted headlights tailing us, suspicious vehicles. I made damn sure of that.
Still, I can’t relax. I’m wound so tight I could snap at any moment.
I come back to the bedroom door and watch her sleep. I wonder how much she’ll remember when she wakes up. If she’ll recall being pulled into that side corridor, how I saw the needle in that bastard’s hand, the nervous sweat that was beaded on his brow. Or how I took him down, fast and brutal, before he could drag her out a side exit and make her disappear for good. How I carried her through the museum, out of the party, keeping herhead tucked against my chest, hoping no one noticed. Especially Ashford.
I’m not a hero. I’m not even sure I’m a good man. But I know what I saw in Andrew Ashford's eyes when he handed her off to Crest. It was ownership, calculation, and pure fucking indifference. I know what I felt the second I saw her being groped by that asshole, touching what is mine. And then the disgusting words he thought no one heard. But I did. Making something primal and ugly stir inside me.
Right then, I knew I had to do something. I promised her.
So I did.
