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My throat tightens instantly, as if a strong hand has gripped it to choke me. “You can come to me with anything, Miss Summers,” Mason’s father says, staring me straight in the eyes as he continues, “I know everyone, Jules, and I’ll be sure you’re taken care of?—”
“Enough,” Mason practically growls at his father.
His father finally takes his assessing stare from me to give Mason his attention. “Just out of curiosity, Mason, what little secret did you tell our Jules?”
Mason ignores his father, taking my hand in his with a bruising force and leading me to the door. My legs are weak but I keep up with him. He rips the door open so violently I swear he nearly pulls it off the hinges.
“Go,” Mason commands me, sweeping his arm forward and I listen immediately, grateful to be getting the fuck out of here mostly unscathed.
“Bye for now, Jules,” Mr. Thatcher says to my back as I leave, and I’m grateful Mason is between us. I can’t breathe or do anything other than follow Mason’s lead until we’ve left the station. I can feel everyone watching us and my face blazes with the awareness, but fear is what keeps me moving and my eyes staring straight ahead.
“Mason,” I whimper as he braces his hand against the small of my back and leads me across the street to where he’s parked. I stare at his car, feeling as though I’m so close to safety, but knowing I’m going back to a cell.
Mason doesn’t respond but he pulls me in close, wrapping his arm around my waist as we cross the street to the parking lot. Without knowing what to think or feel, my head spins. I have to walk quickly to keep up with his purposeful strides, but I feel comforted just from his arm wrapped around me, needing his embrace.
For a moment, as Mason opens my door and waits for me to get in his car, I think there’s hope. I think I can repair the damage I’ve caused even though I’m not sure why I’m even considering it.
I’m so confused, so conflicted. The only thing I’m certain of is that if Mason hadn’t come to get me, something bad would have happened. Something to make sure I was silenced.
Foolish. I’m so damn foolish. At the thought, I struggle to breathe and I lay my head back against the seat, feeling the weight of what just happened flow through every limb. Heat flows around my skin, uncomfortably and unbearably so.
Mason shuts his door with a loud thud as he gets in and starts the car, all without sparing me a glance while he backs out and merges into traffic.
With tension pulled through every inch of me, I wait for something, for a moment to speak or for him to say something, but I’m given nothing.
“Mason?” I take a chance and say his name as the car stops at a red light. His fingers flex on the steering wheel and then his knuckles turn white as he grips it and slowly turns to look at me.
His eyes are cold, ice cold, and I instantly regret speaking at all.
“We’ll talk when we get home,” he says beneath his breath. I nod once, feeling alone and abandoned and utterly hopeless.
MASON
Forever doesn’t end,
But it also doesn’t last.
What you feel right now,
Will soon be the past.
Left only with the memories,
And the desire to hold.
But time doesn’t wait,
And even love grows old.
Iwould have killed them. Both the detective and the commissioner. Possibly even my father. I’ve never been so close to snapping, never. I’ve never come close to feeling that pull. Pure anger and hatred are fueling my thoughts. I’m barely contained, on the edge of something dangerous, something so dark I’ve never confronted it before. Not even that fateful day I destroyed Jules’s life. Even that wasn’t like this.
Dragging my hand down my face, I listen as my shoes smack against the hardwood floors, but then the sound is muted on the rug in front of the gray suede sofa in my living room.
“What were you going to tell them?” I ask as I pace in front of her, my gaze still focused downward.
It’s never felt colder or darker in this house before. Not to me. Even with the bright white snow reflecting light through the large modern windows on the back wall, there’s not an ounce of warmth in the room.
Ice courses through my blood, but even that’s not cold enough to take the heat from my anger.