Page 49 of Sacred Vow
TILLY
T he cool morning breeze brushes across my face, and I groan as I grip my blanket and pull it higher, trying to block it out. Only my brows furrow in confusion.
Breeze? Why the fuck is there a breeze on my face? I’m supposed to be tucked safely in my stupid little tent with the zipper secured all the way to the top. The only breeze I should feel is the tang of my own morning breath smacking against the side of the tent and rebounding back at my face.
I peel my eyes open and am instantly hit with the blinding sun, smacking me right in my eyes, and I squint as I try to find my bearings. Am I rocking?
The sound of water lapping alerts me that something isn’t right, and without even giving myself a chance to properly wake up, I sit up, wide-eyed as I stare around me in horror.
I’m in the middle of the fucking lake.
“What in the ever-loving fuck?”
My shitty air mattress barely hovers over the water, struggling to keep me from plunging into the dark depths below, as the edges of my favorite blanket hang over the side, submerged by the chilly lake.
I’m going to fucking kill him.
“ZEPHYR DI-FUCKING-ROZé. GET YOUR BITCH-ASS OUT HERE AND TELL ME WHY THE FUCK I’M IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GODDAMN LAKE!”
My throat immediately hurts from screaming, and as my life raft begins to wobble, my hands shoot out, desperately trying to balance myself as my gaze shoots around my mattress, looking for something to use as an oar to row my little boat back into reality.
A laugh echoes across the open lake, and my deathly stare shoots straight over to Chloe and Zephyr’s tent, watching as it’s slowly unzipped from inside.
Not a second later, Zephyr steps out into the breezy morning, a stupid smirk on his handsome face as he stretches and rubs his hand up and down his bare torso.
Chloe follows him out, and together they walk right over to the shore, both of them looking equally proud of themselves.
Zephyr has the audacity to look at me as though he didn’t have a damn thing to do with this. “Ahh, shit, babe. What the fuck are you doing out there?”
My eyes widen, anger bursting through my veins. “I . . . I . . . I’M GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU GIANT ASSHOLE! YOU PARENT TRAPPED ME!”
“Who me?” he questions, looking around him as though he might be able to find another culprit. “I would never!”
“You’re coming to get me.”
He cringes and makes a show of stretching again. “Ahh. Sorry, Tilly Willy, you’re shit outta luck. Unfortunately, cardio is not part of my daily routine, and babe, I’m looking fucking good. I can’t afford to fuck with that. You’re gonna have to row your ass back here. Or you could always swim.”
I gape at the asshole. “Swim? You think I’m about to swim my ass back to shore?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen you in action. You’ve got plenty of stamina. You’ll be fine.”
“I CAN’T FUCKING SWIM, ZEPHYR. I DON’T KNOW HOW!”
His face scrunches, the slightest hint of concern crossing his features before he shrugs it off. “Don’t bullshit me, Tilly Bardot,” he scoffs. “You know how to swim.”
I stand on the wobbly air mattress. “If I knew how to swim, do you think I’d be this fucking pissed?”
Chloe cringes beside him, her hand brushing against his strong arm. “Uhhh, I don’t think she can.”
“What?” His eyes widen in horror, his gaze shooting right back to mine. “Wait. Are you for real? You can’t swim?”
“THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU, ASSHOLE.”
The air mattress starts to wobble some more, and my arms start flailing around, trying to keep still. “FUCK. ZEPH!”
“Okay. Shit. Ummm. Just stay still.”
The wobbling gets worse, and as my feet start shifting around on the mattress, my flailing arms morph into a full-on interpretive dance, until I simply can’t take it anymore and my ass topples over the side, dirty lake water shooting up through my nostrils as I let out a blood-curdling scream.
“ZEPH,” I scream, water bubbling down my throat as I frantically try to find the edge of the air mattress to keep me up. I desperately kick at the water, trying to keep my head up as the dirty water splashes against my face.
My hands slap against the water as Zeph’s frantic roar echoes across the lake. “FUCK!”
He sprints out into the water, taking massive strides as Chloe eagerly watches on from the side, her ankles buried in the dirty water.
Zeph launches himself into a swan dive, his arms whipping around as he swims faster than an Olympic athlete taking on the hundred-meter sprint, his adrenaline pushing him to his limits.
I keep flailing, desperate to keep myself above the water as Zeph comes to my rescue, and the moment he reaches me, his hands grip my waist, catapulting me out of the water and back up onto the half-deflated air mattress.
“Holy fucking shit,” I pant, staring up at the bright blue sky, trying to catch my breath.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Zeph says, clutching the side of the air mattress. “It was just a prank. I never would have done it if I knew you couldn’t swim.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him, letting out a yelp as he tries to pull himself up onto the mattress, only to dip the side underwater and almost send me sprawling back into the dark abyss below.
“Fuck. Sorry,” he says. “I’m gonna have to swim us back.”
I roll over and smile down at him, water dripping across my face from my wet hair. “It’s like a real-life Titanic moment, only I’m assuming you’re not gonna die. At least, not until you drag my ass back to shore, then I will kill you myself.”
Zeph smirks. “You’re gonna have to catch me first.”
“Oh, believe me. That won’t be an issue.”
Zeph kicks his legs, slowly dragging me back to shore, and as he awkwardly swims with one hand while clutching onto the mattress with the other, I relax back into my damp blanket and take in the beaming sun above me. “This is nice, don’t you think?”
“Mmm,” he grunts.
“You know, I wonder if this is the lake where the Lochness Monster lives.”
“It’s not.”
“Well, it’s gotta be home to something,” I muse.
“Fish. Crabs. Gators. You know, I’m always hungriest first thing in the morning.
I wonder if that’s the same for gators. I’d hate to be you right now, just jiggling around in the water like a tasty little snack.
I bet a gator could just swallow you whole.
You know, chomp down on those skinny little legs.
He could just fold you in half and death roll your ass right to the bottom of the lake. ”
Zeph stops swimming and turns to face me, gaping at me in horror. “You take that back,” he says, splashing water up over my face. “I do not have skinny legs.”
I shrug my shoulders and pretend to think about it. “I don’t know . . .”
“I swear, Tilly. Take it back, or I’ll feed you to the gators myself.”
I laugh. He knows damn well that he looks good. He spends more hours inside the gym than he spends inside Chloe, and that’s saying a lot. Zephyr Di Rozé does not skip leg day.
“Fine,” I mutter, only because we’re almost to the shore. “You don’t have skinny legs.”
“Thank you.”
He gets back to doggy-paddling us back into the world of the living, and before I know it, my feet are back on dry land.
As I look up at Chloe, she gives me a smile, innocence radiating out of her, but I know better.
This little she-devil is just as guilty as Zephyr, and with that, I sprint toward her, soggy clothes and all, laughing as she squeals and takes off down the shore.
Four hours later, I’m sitting in the backseat of Zephyr’s Range Rover, taking up as much space as I can as I scroll through old images on my phone.
It’s been a long drive. Much longer than anticipated after someone—not mentioning any names—took a wrong turn, which turned our quick two-hour drive home into a four-hour road trip, but I’m not complaining.
The long drive with these amazing people sure beats rotting away on my couch, sulking about a man who has more layers than an onion.
Zeph turns onto my road, and as he drives toward my apartment complex, I lean forward, my elbows braced on my knees. “Hey, Zeph?”
“Whatdoyawant?” he rumbles out, probably still recovering from his short bout of cardio this morning.
“You know how the only thing getting me through this terrible heartache your father has caused is by giving you a hard time?”
“Yeah?”
I hold my phone out, shoving it directly between Chloe and Zephyr. “Have I ever shown you the photo of me winning my state swim meet in high school?”
“What?” his gaze snaps between my phone and the road before he eventually yanks it out of my hand and looks at the image properly. “You can swim?”
“Oh yeah,” I say with a beaming smile as the car rolls to a stop outside my apartment complex. I scootch to the edge and open the door before climbing out. “Quite spectacularly, actually. I was the sole reason my school made it to state. I was quite the superstar after that win.”
I all but prance around the car as I step up to the driver’s door and lean in through the open window, snatching my phone right out of Zephyr’s hand.
“You’re dead to me,” Zeph says in a bland tone, more than realizing that I could have easily gotten my ass back to the shore on my own, and that all that flailing around and almost drowning was nothing but an award-winning show put on for his sole benefit.
But hell, if he wants to mess with me, then he should know that I always get even. No matter what.
I grin right back at him. “Love you, too,” I say, before glancing past him to Chloe. “You coming home tonight, or can I go back to being a full-time slob on the couch?”
She shrugs. “Maybe. Not sure yet, but I’ll let you know.”
“Okay,” I say, reaching back into the backseat and grabbing my bag of soggy clothes. “I’ll deny it if anyone asks, but I’m glad you dragged me along to this. A whole twenty-four hours of teasing Zeph really helped put me back on track.”
“I thought it might,” Chloe says.
I offer her a small wave before stepping back onto the sidewalk, and as I make my way up to the main entrance of my apartment complex, I listen to Zeph’s car pull away.
I had a great time last night, but I definitely drank a bit too much—something that’s becoming increasingly more popular in my world at the moment—and I can’t wait to crash.
I can’t even recall what TV show I was pretending to binge, but whatever it was, it’s going to go on the second I get into my apartment.
Then I’ll be ordering Chinese food and calling it a day.
Hell, I might even shower and wash this lake water out of my hair.
Making my way up to my apartment, my feet drag, exhaustion quickly claiming me, yet as I reach my floor and peer down the hallway, a strange chill sweeps through my body.
“What the fuck?” I murmur to myself, seeing that my door has been kicked in.
My heart races, and as I creep toward my apartment, a strange nervousness begins to flutter through me. Have we been robbed?
With every step I take, my stomach sinks lower, and by the time I reach the broken door, my whole body is shaking.
The door hasn’t just been kicked in; it was destroyed, literally splintered into a million pieces.
Someone who is breaking in to steal my TV wouldn’t go to that kind of length.
Sure, they’d break the door down, but the person who shattered this door did so with the type of anger that comes from personal experience, and apart from Zephyr, the only person I’ve intentionally pissed off lately is The Vag Destroyer.
My blood runs cold.
Was it really him? Because sure, I said some things to put him in his place, but I did so after he made comments about needing to teach me a lesson by raping me until I bled.
Is that what he was here to do? But more than that, I thought he was just some asshole on the internet, but does he know where I live?
Fuck.
Peering into my apartment, I see the whole place has been ransacked.
The entryway table lays on its side, and the glass bowl that kept all of mine and Chloe’s little knick-knacks has been shattered on the floor.
The curtains were torn from the curtain rods, while our brand-new couch was slashed to pieces with a knife.
My hands shake as I grip my phone, trying to work out who to call. Chloe? Caesar? The cops? I don’t know.
Tears well in my eyes. I’m not one of those people who get super emotionally attached to a place. If I had to move tomorrow, it wouldn’t bother me, and yet seeing my home so thoroughly destroyed and all of my belongings smashed to pieces, I can’t help but feel gutted.
Glass crunches under my shoes as I move deeper into the apartment, my gaze sweeping through the wreckage.
Chloe’s room mostly seems fine. Just her clothes tossed from her drawers, but my room looks like the devil was summoned inside of it.
Everything is destroyed, right down to my mangled phone charger that someone snatched out of the wall and sliced with a knife.
I stand in my room, taking it all in, when I pull my phone up and find Chloe’s number. I press on her contact before lifting it to my ear, listening with a broken heart as the phone rings once and then twice.
“Hey, you forget something?” Chloe asks, answering the call.
“You need to come back. Our place has been ransacked—”
“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a deep tone says from behind me.
I whip around, my eyes widening as I find Jordan standing in my bedroom doorway. He’s dressed in all black with a baseball bat in his hand, and all hope drains out of me, leaving me terrified and cold.
“What do you mean our place has been ransacked? Is somebody there?” Chloe questions, a slight panic in her tone. “Tilly? What’s going on?”
Jordan’s lips twist with a sickening smirk, and he lunges before I even have a chance to react, the bat already swinging through the air.
“SHIT. CHLOE. CALL THE POLICE,” I scream, just milliseconds before the bat comes down over my temple like a crack of lightning smacking into the side of my head. My body flies across the destroyed room, and before I’ve even hit the floor, everything turns black.