I slide down the door and cover my face with my hands. My elbows meet my knees as I cry tearlessly into my palms.
Twenty-four hours.
That's all it’s taken for everything to change. A small whimper forces its way through my lips as I consider what I’ve lost: my new life, my brother, and the chance to be with Konnor as just Konnor.
“Blesk?” Konnor’s worried voice calls through the door. “Blesk, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.”
Don’t apologise to me.
We both remain silent for several minutes before his deep voice rumbles through the door again. “I don’t know what you’ve gone through. Or what this must be like for you. And after yesterday—” He stops, his tone dropping on the next three words. “With fucking Erik.”
What will he think of you?
What will he think of you when he finds out that you let him, that you kept it secret?
He growls and hits the door hard enough for me to feel the vibration. “Just know I’m happy. I couldn’t be happier. I thought you died. Everyone told me you died. But you’re here, in my bathroom. It’s so much to take in, and I’m so happy, but I’m also scared I’m gonna lose you again. I want to be here for you. I am here for you, every day for the rest of your life,Blesk. No one will ever hurt you again. Ever.” He knocks on the door again. “Blesk? Look, take a shower. Maybe that’ll help.”
I huddle up in the corner of the shower. The steamy water pours down on me as I relive everything that’s happened this past week. College. The Grill. Erik. Elise. New friends. Konnor—Konnor Slater is Deakon Nerrock. I… I don’t know how to sort these pieces. My head hurts.
But underneath my impulse to run, take space and organise all these pieces, compartmentalise, a familiar feeling churns through me. My ever-present friend. Guilt. When I think about Deakon—Konnor—guilt is the strongest feeling.
I had a key all along.
Now, I have the key to something else. His past. I have the key to answers he may have, to details he may have forgotten, because as much as I tried, as much as I buried the idea of a girl under a tree on a hill on that day, the memories never dissolved. I remember him.
My stomach cramps.
He has been through hell and back. I have some answers to his past, not many, but some. Once I tell him everything, paint a true picture of his captivity, everything I kept him from, maybe he'll let Liz go, too.
Maybe he’ll find peace.
Being Konnor.
Just Konnor.
This might just be his closure.
I can give him that.
Sitting under the hot spray, I analyse something he said. “I want to be here for you. I am here for you, every day for the rest of your life, Blesk. No one will ever hurt you again.” What fantastical ideal has he got in his head?
I’m not the victim.
It’s all a blur, but I remember the ambulance arriving yesterday, followed by a police car. My property is just outside The District… In The District you don’t call the police with an ambulance. You don’t call them for much at all, honestly. They don’t come alone. Just like this time… The officers handcuffed Konnor until two black SUV’s arrived. Four men in black suits walked onto the hill—didn’t they?
I was still crying at that stage, my vision blurred, my mind screaming for a moment of peace. The men, they spoke to the police who released Konnor with hardly a conversation.
“Just a fight over a girl,” they assured the officer. “Nothing more. The boss has said our boy won’t be pressing charges.” They followed the ambulance away from the hill and left Elise and Jax wondering what the hell happened. I was oddly unsurprised.
Who is Erik involved with?
Or was a witness protection unit?Responding to a violent attack on a hill that was once famous for holding a little boy captive? I was simply relieved that Konnor wasn’t handcuffed; the thought of him spending a single moment in a cell would probably destroy us both.
Konnor… He doesn’t know that I can’t be what he wants me to be. Finding each other again is not a blessing, it is a tragedy. My heart squeezes as that thought arises; I don’t want to be Liz. I don’t want to be liked or loved for Liz.
I soap myself up and down.
Standing under the faucet, I watch as the water rushes down me and the soap disappears down the drain. All trace of Erik’s mistake, his touch and smell, rushing into the pipes.
