Page 46 of Love You To Pieces

“May I be excused?” My voice is shaky as I stare toward the kitchen, trying not to seem jittery. Letting them know something is off will really be the end of me, and the knife weighs too heavily on my hip where it’s pressed, the oily drippings from the meat feeling like a physical presence on my leg that makes me want to hurl.

Fox pokes his head out, concern etched on his features. He’s drying a dish in his hands with a towel, and he studies my face before asking, “Depends. Are you going to go puke all this up?”

I shake my head slowly, fighting the urge to jump in with a quick denial. That would be way too obvious, and it’s so fucking hard to keep my hand off the knife at my hip. My fingers twitch. “No, I just…” I glance down, trying to think of a believable excuse.

Approaching footsteps make me look up, chin jerking so I can watch Fox walk across the room until he’s right in front of me. The knife feels like a tornado siren, like a dog whistle giving off some sound only audible to him.

He’s going to know.

He’s going to fucking realize, and⁠—

Gently, Fox reaches up to stroke my hair back from my face. A small smile finds his lips, and he leans forward until his mouth is only inches from mine. “You can go back upstairs, darlin’,” he hums. But when I turn away, he catches my arm, his fingers only inches from the handle under the waistband.

My breath catches in my throat, my heart racing, and when he drags me back a step, I feel like a terrified, paralyzed rabbit whose heart is about to burst from fear.

“Just don’t do anything stupid, Sadie-Rae,” he warns, lips so close I can feel the exhale of his words. “You know it never works out well for you. And one of these times you get reckless…” His fingers trail up my arm until he cups my jaw.

“We’re going to have to teach you a lesson about good manners.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

For hours, I lay in the bed they gave me and just listen. Every second, every beat of my heart, fills my head with more possibilities for what could go wrong, instead of the one way it could go right.

The way I need it to.

Most of the time, I’m curled on my side with the hilt of the stolen knife between my fingers like someone will steal it from me. As if it could somehow slip away and fall through an unseen crack in the floor, ruining my chance of getting out of here. The blade still shines with grease from the meat, but I ignore that, not wanting to let it turn my stomach.

No matter how it was used before, it’s my knife now.

But it’s no Sally, and I’ve never in my life wished for a chainsaw to spontaneously appear like I do now.

Neither man comes to bother me, and I’m careful not to make a sound. Hopefully, they think I’m asleep. Or at worst, that I’m too traumatized to even make a peep for the hours that I lie in the bed, listening to my heart.

Either works for me, really.

But I continue to wait, barely blinking, barely moving, as I listen to their movements below me. I don’t know what they’re doing, though the back door opens and closes a few times during the three or so hours that I wait. Absently, I wonder where my phone is. Is it still back at the auto shop? Maybe it’s been sold by now, wiped clean of my contacts.

Of my whole fucking life.

No matter that Sebastian ruined the best friendship I ever had, I was never able to delete pictures of them. So they were still there, waiting, hidden in the very top of my library for the nights when I woke up in a haze and too out of it to know better than to relive the memories of before.

My fingers stroke along the knife and I inhale, my legs curling more tightly up to my chest. I swear I can see the pictures any time I blink.

Summer vacation after our freshman year of college.

Riding horses together in the mountains south of Nashville.

Some restaurant that Emma took us all to, which ended up being one of the worst places we’d ever eaten.

All of those memories, now gone, forgotten, and living only in my head.

Will they fade too?

Or will I die before they have a chance to?

When the thought stops me cold, I close my eyes hard against the burn of tears. “I will not die here,” I whisper, clutching the knife tighter. “I—” My words cut off when I hear footsteps on the stairs, and my heart lurches when those footsteps stop outside my door.

Please don’t come in.