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“I did,” Harper said and nodded adamantly. “I gouged his eyes. I lunged at him and threw myself out of the van. I wanted to help the girl who was laying there, but I couldn’t.” Her voice cracked.
“You saved yourself, and there is nothing wrong with that,” I said and pushed the long strands of her hair out of her face and behind her neck. My fingers danced over her skin. “You were brave, and by escaping, you were able to get help and notify law enforcement about what happened.”
She let out a soft breath and rested her head on my shoulder. “Yeah. I never thought about it like that.”
“Well, you should. You did good not going with him. Fighting him off probably saved your life.”
While I understood who the culprit was, I didn’t know what his motivations were or if he was capable of murder.
Ben had taken Ariella for a reason, but Harper, would have been a loose end.
He would have had no need to keep her alive.
Harper shivered in my arms. “How about we head back?” I suggested. I didn’t have a jacket to loan her.
My job was to look out for her, and I was doing a terrible job of that if she was freezing in the forest.
“Just one more minute?” she whispered—her attention not the least bit on the night sky.
Her warm hand rested against my chest, and a moment later, she straddled me, and her mouth covered mine.