I breathe a sigh of relief.
I felt sure I could be alone in the dead of night. Maybe it’s closer to dawn than I realize?
My stomach plummets when the figure reemerges and moves swiftly toward the front gate. I take a step back when she crosses the road, head turning and ponytail swinging to checkthe way is clear.Surely not.She can’t have seen me out here. Not from that far away. Not when I don’t have a light over me.
Chaos’s woman—name forgotten—moves swiftly toward the fence-line, and then lets herself through another gate. She’s making fast progress toward me, while I’m still trying to decide the best course of action. I mean, surely she’s not coming over for me. But then again, why would she cut through a muddy field otherwise?
I stay shivering at the end of the path, watching as she reaches the fence between the field and the house lot.
“Hey,” she whisper-yells, ushering me over with a jerk of her head. “Come give me a hand.”
I look behind me as though somebody would be fucking standing there—smart—and then dash across the dewy lawn.
“Take this.” She offloads two hot travel mugs into my hands and then reaches for the top rail of the fence. A blanket is slung around her shoulders.
I move back, giving her room to dismount. How she managed to vault the fence in a long dress and thick oversized jersey, I don’t know. But she did. And now she unwraps the blanket from her shoulders to offer it to me.
No.
Toput it around me.The fuck?
“You must be freezing,” she states, tucking the blanket over my arms and then retrieving one of the hot drinks. “How long have you been out here?”
“How did you know I was here?” I counter.
She smirks. The woman’s absolutely stunning in a neo-gothic kind of way. “Chaos forgets to log out sometimes.”
I frown.The hell does she mean?
She catches my confusion and gestures above my head. “He has cameras everywhere.”Of course.“And he logs in on my laptop sometimes to keep watch.”
To keep watch.My stomach bottoms out, head doing mental gymnastics. Would he have seen me come out here with the phone? Did Loki even narc, or did I rat myself out?
“So, whatchya doing?” she asks before taking a casual sip of what smells like coffee.
“Not much.”
“A lot on your mind?” She sighs, staring off over the field to her house. “I have that problem sometimes too. Makes it impossible to sleep, right?”
“I’m sorry,” I interject, stiff as a board so as not to drop the blanket from my shoulders. “I don’t remember your name.”
“Right.” She laughs softly. “Sorry. Vanessa.” She appears to consider offering her hand but decides against it, given my struggle to hold on to everything as it is. “I’m Chaos’s old lady.”
“I know.”
Her gaze drops to the ground briefly. “You’re Jenna, right?”
I smile softly. “Guessing you’ve heard about me already.”
“Some. But if anyone asks, he tells me nothing.” She sips the drink again, smile playing on her lips. “Did you want to go inside?”
“Not really.”
A brief nod, and then she’s back to nursing the coffee.
I feel responsible for the lull in conversation, but I’m also wary about opening up to people given what happened when I spilled to Fang. We drink our brews in companionable silence for a while, and I have to give it to her: she makes a great coffee.
“When I first moved here,” Vanessa says suddenly, “I wanted to disappear. Hence why I bought the cottage.” She gestures to her cozy abode. “I’d left a lot of shit behind in my life, and I wanted to stay buried so it couldn’t find me. But no matter what I did, how hard I tried to remain invisible, it found me anyway.”
