Page 103 of Burn

I take a deep breath, feeling my lungs expand. On my exhale, I rush out, “She’s handcuffed to the bed.”

Silence.

A long fucking silence as my best friend processes that I just told him I have a girl handcuffed in my room after she found out I’d installed hidden cameras in her apartment.

More silence.

“Colton —” I start, but he cuts me off.

His tone is rough and edged with furor. “Uncuff her right the fuck now, Adrian.”

Another scream tears through the silence, and before I can wonder if it’s in my head, Colton says, “Are you fucking kidding me? She’s screaming in your fucking apartment? Uncuff. Her. Now.”

I push to my feet and start pacing the kitchen.

If I uncuff her, she leaves. I’ll never see her again.

“Adrian,” Colton says. Without waiting for me to respond, he continues, “You have one minute to get in there and uncuff her, or I’m dispatching a unit to your place. I love you, man. I really do. I’ll back you up on almost anything, but not this.”

God, he’s right.

I turn back to the door. It feels like it’s breathing, a beast that contains someone that means more to me than any one person has in a long time. It pulses and writhes, as if it’ll attack if I go near it.

“I can’t,” I croak out. “I’ll lose her.”

“You lost her the minute you locked her up. What do you think you’re gonna do, man? Keep her a prisoner in your bedroom forever? She has a job. She has friends. Someone is going to realize she’s missing.”

He’s making way too much sense.

I fucking hate him for it.

“Adrian, someone will come looking, and what do you think will happen if they find her like that? You’ll go back to jail, and this time you won’t be a minor. You won’t get a light sentence; you won’t walk away unscathed. Your life will be over, and she’ll still be fucking gone.”

“How do I fix this?” I ask him, praying he has an answer.

“You let her go.” His words are simple and resolute.

I stare at the door and imagine her behind it. I imagine the minute I let her go. Will she scream? Hit me? Cry? Call the police? The line remains silent for a while as I mentally prepare for what comes next.

Finally, I say, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Cally questions.

“I’ll let her go.”

Another beat of silence.

“I don’t know what I was thinking, Colton.”

“I know, man.”

“I think I just wanted a chance to explain.”

This time, he chuckles. “There was never a way to explain this. You made fucked up choices, and now you have to pay the price. You just better pray she doesn’t press charges.”

Let her press charges.

If the outcome of all of this is that she walks away forever, then I might as well be in prison, because nothing out in the world is worth having without her.