Page 6

She’s in a position to make life-altering choices for a man who’s always been so fiercely independent, and that’s shaken her to the core. She can hardly make those choices for herself half the time. How can she be expected to choose what’s best for anyone else?

If they go today, is it too soon? If she waits, will he continue to spiral downhill?

He won’t walk out on his own, that much is clear. She hesitates to have him carried out fighting on only the first day. Maybe he can still come around here, she hopes, pulling on fresh clothes and making her way back to his room.

His breathing is more even today, pupils slowly returning to normal. It gives her hope that the drugs are leaving his system and things might shift in a better direction soon.

Then someone drops a tray outside the door and Wade nearly climbs the wall at the sharp clatter.

Yanks at the boards on the window, clawing frantically while trying to escape until there’s a trail of blood from his torn nails across the wood.

Eventually, he slides down the wall again, heaving and panting while she watches with her hand over her mouth, trying to hold in her sob so it doesn’t distress him.

Fuck this. Not one more day.

She waits until he’s quiet again and slips out the door to make arrangements.

When the time comes, an hour later, it is just as awful as she feared it would be.

Kara isn’t strong enough to be the only one needed, and it takes two other men to subdue him enough to be loaded into a wagon.

At least they put some pants on him before this ordeal.

He fights at first, but then that glazed-over look takes the place of his aggression and he goes limp. Doesn’t make a sound after that. Lies in the back of the wagon with the blanket she wrapped him in and suffers every bump in the road to their destination.

She’s with him, but doesn’t touch. The desire to reach out is nearly an entity of its own, yet she won’t take that without permission.

Especially when it won’t bring him any comfort.

Thankfully, the ride is short. The house is just how she left it years ago.

Another layer of dust coats every surface, but it’s quiet and calm.

Still has two perfectly good bedrooms, and she has them move Wade into the one with the softest mattress.

“There’s nothing blocking the windows. Want us to board them?” Luke asks from the doorway.

They move out into the hall where she crosses her arms and counts the seconds before this conversation is over. “This isn’t a prison. I can’t lock him up like that. The windows will be fine.”

He raises a brow. “You’re out here alone now. If he escapes—”

“We’ll figure it out. We’ll be okay. Really.”

If he escapes, she’ll just follow him and keep following him until eventually, he stops again.

Luke only nods, pointing to the box of food and supplies left on the dining room table. “Should last you about two weeks.”

“Thanks.”

“Would you ever have come back for more than trading? If he didn’t show up?” he asks, pausing at the door.

She only shakes her head in a clear no .

“Good luck.”

It’s a skeptical comment, and she hates how easily it feeds her doubt.

Maybe he’s right, and she’s even crazier than before.

Being here alone with Wade is like locking herself in the lion’s den.

She isn’t blind to the fact that he’s dangerous.

Hasn’t romanticized their relationship to a point where she assumes their bond will protect her.

He’s already shown her it won’t when he pinned her to the ground the other day in his delirium.

She’s not a quitter, though, and he is all that matters to her now.

There are no children screaming or bands playing, and once Luke is gone, it’s serene and quiet. A few birds chirp outside and the incoming storm promises the tranquil sound of raindrops.

It’s just the two of them now, for better or worse.

She takes a deep breath, slowly entering the room again to find Wade still on the bed but with the blanket tossed to the ground. On the bed. That’s progress, she thinks, boosted by something so tiny that it shouldn’t be counted as forward movement.

“Everyone’s gone.” She leans against the far wall, keeping her tone even. “No one else is ever going to touch you again. I swear it.”

He’s still dazed by the ordeal of getting here, but his pupils finally seem normal.

“We’re going to live here together, you and me.

I know it’s not much to look at, but it’s safe and relatively clean.

” She bites her lip, hesitating a moment.

“So here’s the thing, I don’t know what I’m doing.

Not even a little bit. So I’m just gonna pretend everything’s fine until it is again, okay? ”

Silence.

“Okay. First things first, lunch.”

He doesn’t move. She doesn’t expect he will while she heads into the dining room to rifle through the box, pulling out a few things that’ll last if he refuses.

An unexpected sight outside the window catches her attention and brings a slow smile as she devises an impromptu plan.

Five minutes later she’s back with their food, placing his on the side table along with the little flower plucked from its bush and nestled in a cup.

“They grow here out back,” she says, gently. “Thought it might spruce the place up a bit. Do you remember that time you gave me a flower when we were young?”

She remembers that moment like it was yesterday, though all she’s done is replay every second they shared together, so of course it’s fresh.

The foster system sent him to a different house for months when they were fifteen, citing overcrowding, and leaving her to fend for herself among the wolves.

They had always been passed around like cattle.

Soon enough, he was walking through the door again with a smug grin on his handsome face.

“Missed you too much to stay away,” he grinned, tucking a little flower behind her ear that he pilfered from the garden out front.

The man who tried so hard to make her smile, even when everything seemed so bleak, is still in there somewhere. She’ll try until her last breath to find him again.

There’s a small shelf with a stack of books on the wall she’s already read cover to cover, but she plucks one loose anyway and settles into an overstuffed chair.

Takes her food with her and tries to pretend that everything’s fine.

Normal. That they’re here on a regular stormy day, enjoying a peaceful afternoon together.

“It’s a romance novel,” she says with a smirk. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll read it out loud. Or one of the others.”

There are mysteries and adventures, and even random biographies he might enjoy. If she has to read every single one to him, then she will. Not today, though. Today, they only need to exist here together and adjust to this new place.

Later, after she’s made it through three chapters and leaves for another slice of bread, Wade’s water glass sits half empty when she returns.

This small step in the right direction offers proof she made the right choice in coming here.

One foot in front of the other, one moment at a time, they can do this. She’s not going anywhere.