Page 10 of A Simple Mistake (Deadly Mistakes #1)

TEN

Gabriel

Present

“Where’s Liam?” I ask as I turn around, realizing he’s disappeared.

“I… I don’t know. He was here?” Donna asks.

Of course he’s gone. I was the one who told him I never wanted to see him again. But why is it that I feel terrified without him here? I feel like the killer is watching me, waiting for me…

Fuck.

I try to head back toward the house to help the injured officer, but Michaels stops me.

“The paramedics are almost here. You need to sit.”

And I obey him because I feel dizzy and nauseous and like I can’t catch my breath after running after Liam. I saw him running toward that train, fixated on the killer, and I knew… I knew if I didn’t catch him, he’d have risked everything for a chance to end him.

The world is crashing around me. I’m dizzy and so tired. It’s like the adrenaline that kept me going for days drains from my body, leaving me in a state of hell.

I can’t stop thinking about the head that’d been waiting outside the room when I’d finally gotten out. The way that it could have been me. The realization that death was so close.

I can hear them sending people out in the direction the killer had run. But the man was so careful. There’s no way he’s going to get caught. If I hadn’t pulled Lucille’s collar off and had the tracker on me, would anyone have found us?

When I catch Robinson’s eyes, he quickly walks away, but I’m confused by his reaction. Was that… guilt? But why?

“Hey, can you lie down? You look like you’re going to collapse,” Penny says as she kneels to wrap an arm around me where I’m sitting. “I’m right here. You’re safe now.”

And I know that I am. I’m safe surrounded by all of my coworkers who care about me deeply.

Yet why is it that the only one I truly felt safe with is now gone?

As the paramedics descend on me and start to strap me down, I hear someone radioing to Michaels that they found a woman who’d been thrown out of her car when she pulled over to help a man. I know that means he got away. He took her car and fled the scene.

But everything fades away as the sounds and lights all mesh together, and I find myself drifting off into the darkness as I dream about the killer haunting my every move while I find safety in the arms of a shadow drawing me in close.