Page 197 of Chalk Outline

“Shut up.” Winona grabs a kitchen towel and throws it on his face.

I chuckle at that and prop my forearms on the counter beside her. Even though I held her hand when she got stitches and made sure she was okay and had everything she needed before I went to sleep, my heart hates the fact that I didn’t hold her longer.

“Areyouokay?“ she asks. “Had a good sleep?”

“Yeah, I collapsed pretty fast.”

“You wereso high. But cute high.”

I gaze into her dreamy eyes and bite my bottom lip. “Oh, yeah, I was still charming?”

“Always.” She beams.

That woman is my weakness and the best thing that’s ever happened to me. She ignites me in ways that no one will ever understand.

We understand.

A smile spreads across my face, but something else scrapes it—something James said.

“What’s on your mind?” Winona asks, already sensing the underlying cause of my tense posture.

“Something James mentioned,” I pause for a moment, watching her brows knit together as she shakes her head gently to get me talking. “I was born in London. My parents are British.”

“You could’ve had a posh accent,Reeve Hardy.“ Amusement colors her voice as she tries to make a British accent and fails miserably. Laughter still consumes me because she does this to cheer me up and pull me out of those thoughts. She knows exactly how I feel. “I can picture that.”

“That would have been something.” My words trail off. “They just used me because they blamed the world for what it did to them.”

“It’s okay,” she places her hand on mine, “I got you.”

That silent reassurance of “you can fall apart and I’ll catch you and hold you until you feel better” speaks louder than words.

My heart goes out to her because she will never meet her birth parents. She will never know who they are or get closure. Maybe they’re still waiting for her somewhere.

“I’m sorry,”

“Don’t be,” she replies, “We’ve got each other.”

Our faces are just an inch apart. I crush my lips to hers, desperate to feel her. To touch her. To lick her. To love her. I putup so many walls before she entered my life, but she knocked them all down effortlessly. She accepted me from the start, with all my faults and the blood on my hands. Winona stitched all the pieces together one by one, carefully, lovingly, until I was whole again.

I’ve belonged to her since the day I was born. The stars knew it; all they needed was to align our worlds so we could become…us again.

As we pull away from each other with a smitten grin, the front door unlocks, and Romina steps inside. Her heels click against the floor gracefully, but her serious expression tells me bad news has just entered the kitchen.

She lets out a heavy sigh and causes us all to exchange looks. Concern and confusion hang on a tightrope, and I feel we’re about to walk it blindfolded.

My eyes narrow as she opens her mouth to say, “I have something important to share with you. Izzy will explain it better.” She puts her phone on speaker and places it on the counter. Tension coils in my stomach. “Izzy, you’re on speaker phone.”

My eyes land on Romina. She pinches the bridge of her nose before her hand reaches up to remove the sunglasses from the top of her head. She’s restless. I can tell.

“Hey guys, so I’ll cut to the chase. This morning, America experienced a massive cyberattack that caused a series of disturbances. Stolen data, leaks, downtime of critical services, property damage, and death. It’s still ongoing. Right now, all I know is that a series of deadly games threatens to put everyone’s lives at risk.”

“That’s a prank, right?” Mitch asks, his face paling.

“I’m afraid not. They call themselvesThe Creators. My guess is the Halloween Killers are them. Different name, same people.”

James’ words suddenly struck me.

“Welcome to the new world, son.” He swings a knife from side to side, the blade slicing the thin air between us. “Maybe you can’t restart your shitty life, but you can restart everything else. We’re all monsters underneath.”