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“I didn’t fully believe it myself!” I tell her. “I was worried if I said something, it wouldn’t happen.”
“I’ll let you off the hook this time,” she warns, “but you best tell me every tiny fucking detail from now on.”
“Absolutely,” I smile, holding my pinky out for a promise.
As I sip my tea, with the immediate danger subsided, my mind wanders to Marcus as I glance at my phone.
Is he asleep? Is he thinking about me?
A smile creeps across my mouth as I imagine him in bed, possibly even touching himself as he thinks of me.
I quickly push the thought out of my mind as Angela sets her mug down on the wooden coffee table with a thud.
“You need to get some sleep babe,” she says. “You go to bed, and I’ll crash here on the couch. We can go out for brekky in the morning and think what to do ‘bout all this with a fresh head tomorrow, alright?”
“Thank you,” I nod, standing up and giving her a tight hug. “You’re the best.”
“Yea, I am,” Angela says with her cackling laugh as she pushes me off towards my room.
Back under the comfort of my duvet, I snuggle my face into Marcus’s hoodie and close my eyes, sleep finally taking over.
Chapter 27
Lila
“It comes down to this,” Angela says, biting into a crisp bacon strip. “Is there any benefit in telling the cops? Even if they do arrest him, he’s clearly not acting alone. Do you think anyone else will carry through on his threat once he’s locked up?”
I poke at a grape with my fork, my stomach twisted in knots. “I don’t know.”
“You said he looked messed up, right? So this is probably some amateur shit, like, it doesn’t sound like he’s working with the mafia or shit like that. They don’t go around leaving bodies on random fucking street corners. They cover their shit up and just make people fucking disappear. So chances are, he’s left some evidence at the crime scene. So you let the cops do their job. Stay out of it. Keep your head down. Don’t make yourself more of a target.”
I nod but my hands are trembling.
She’s right, I know she’s right, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.
I don’t know how he found me. For all I know, he or the people he works for could have been following me the whole time, waiting by Marcus’s house. Watching me.They could have even tapped my phone for all I know. Reporting it is just too much of a risk.
My throat tightens, the twisting sensation in my stomach threatening to make the few bites of breakfast I’ve had come straight back up.
“Do you know when you’re seeing Marcus again?” Angela asks.
I shake my head, trying to swallow the pressure tightening in my chest.God, I wish I could see him right now.
My pulse flutters just thinking about him – about how safe I felt in his arms. The way he held me, everything felt like it was going to be okay. The way everything about him makes me feel. It’s so much more than anything I’ve ever experienced before.
I barely know anything about him, and yet I feel more for him, and better aboutmyselfwhen I’m with him, than I ever did with Chris.
“Do you think you’ll tell him?” Angela asks.
The knot in my gut tightens further.
I want to. But Ican’t.
I can’t risk ruining any chance I might have at something real with him.
“No,” I say softly. “I don’t think so. If I tell him about last night, I would have to tell him about Chris, and that would mean going into… everything.”
I pause for a moment, trying to visualise the conversation. “I don’t know for sure, but I think… he’d just see me as a past drug addict or something, and he wouldn’t want to see me again.”