Page 43 of The Casualty of Us (Philosophies of the Heart Duet #1)

Chapter Twenty-Two

I stare at Talan over the kitchen island while taking my first sip of tea for the day, playing the same game we have all summer and waiting for it.

The same game I have with all of them, really.

The additional bodyguards my father mentioned before turned into a fully outfitted four-person team quicker than I could blink. One that rarely left my side these days.

Jack from London, who’s the brains of the operation.

A former profiler from Scotland Yard in his mid-forties who burned out but still needs to pay his child support, apparently.

Bobby from Jersey, who honestly makes me feel guilty for being a bitch sometimes because he never lets me open a door, much less walk into a room first. Mia from Florida, who I’m slightly nicer to considering that she’s a woman working in a male-dominated field, and I figure she probably puts up with enough shit on the daily.

I’m also ninety-nine percent sure that she has a thing for Bobby, which he is completely oblivious to.

Then there’s Talan…the former Navy SEAL from California is the one closest to my age, surprisingly. Only twenty-six himself. He’s usually the most suspicious of them all. The one least likely to take me at face value and question whether I’m up to something.

Which just makes him and Ollie best friends these days.

Apparently some variation of the stupid poem the kidnapper—or stalker now, to be correct—sent me had also been left in the room that I had been kept in during the kidnapping.

Which made everyone nervous enough to agree that I needed a little more security but not nervous enough to mention it to me. The actual object of his fascination.

Assholes.

He blinks at me, losing per usual with a drawn-out sigh. “So, Ophelia, what do you have in mind for the day?”

I make him wait, running my gaze over his buzzed blond head and letting him think there might be some slim reason for hope. “Hmm.” I drag the sound out before delivering blandly, “I’m feeling like a run. How about you?”

“Goddammit.” A fork clatters loudly against its plate down the island from me. “O—”

“It’s fine, Oliver.” Talan raises a hand with an asshole smile rising up to bait me. “We don’t mind Ophelia’s penchant for cardio.”

“Right,” he snorts. Loudly. “My beloved baby sister and her need for speed.” The sarcasm in his voice makes it very clear that it’s the last thing he’s buying. “How could I forget?”

I shrug, taking another sip and flicking my eyes his way. “Not my fault you don’t like that I’ve finally discovered my athleticism.”

“Right,” he scoffs, face hardening with obvious anger. “That’s what I don’t like.”

“Hmm.” I roll my eyes away from him to find Talan watching us curiously, immediately setting me on edge and making me purse my lips with a sigh. Looking down into my tea to avoid having to look at both of their faces for just a minute and making the ponytail swing high on my head.

Just a freaking—

“It couldn’t possibly be—”

“I swear if I hear one more—”

“Hello, my darlings.” Mine and Ollie’s words die in the air as our mother floats into the room, completely ignoring the hostility filling it while smiling at everyone. “And Talan.”

“Good morning, ma’am.”

I roll my eyes at the polite smile he gives her in return, letting the scoff that’s trying to escape out as another sigh instead. Reminding myself that I love my mother.

She’s been my only ally in all this.

“Your daughter is going running again.”

Ollie’s tense voice fills the air, and I just about throw my mug right then and there.

“Oh?” She lifts a brow at him, coming around the island beside Talan and grabbing a mug from the cabinet there. “Is she no longer your sister?”

He pauses. “Not when she’s gone off the deep end.”

I clench my fingers around the mug tighter, that knot in my chest giving a sharp twist.

My mom sighs wearily. “Oliver—”

“Mom!” His voice fills the room sharply. All that frustration we’re trapped in breaking free for just a second, and God, do I understand that. “You can’t let her keep doing this! She’s going to get herself fucking killed!”

Crash.

The shards of my mug fly through the air before clattering to the ground like the pieces of Ollie’s words in my head, tea spilling down the wall right next to where Talan’s head was a split second ago.

Everyone is silent as my chest rises and falls sharply with my breaths echoing through my own ears.

I suck down some more air, trying to center myself, and toss out in the general direction of Talan’s shocked face, “Those reflexes need some work.” Quickly turning to my mother and seeing how she’s studying me carefully. “I’m going for a run.”

Her gaze holds mine, and I know she sees it.

The way I’m dying inside by the second at this point.

She has to because I know she would be too.

It takes her a second, but eventually she gives me a slow nod. “Okay, darling, make sure to eat something for me.”

And this time when I blow out a breath, it’s nothing but pure relief. “Of course.”

“Mom!” Ollie shouts. “You can’t—she’s going to—”

“Oliver.” Her eyes snap to him. “I will talk to you in a minute.”

“She goes there , Mom, there—”

“Olli—”

The doorbell rings, and everyone goes still with the energy of the room shifting into something anxious as they all look between each other. Naturally excluding me from their little party of concern since I’ve made my views clear.

Because apparently I’m the only one who understands how this game is supposed to work, and he won’t be reaching out for now.

They made sure of that, or, I guess I did, didn’t I?

Either way, though, they should have listened to me.

I told them he wouldn’t want to play with them.

I scoot the stool back from the island, popping the bubble that’s overtaken the room and reminding everyone, “Running. I’m going to get dressed.”

“Of course.” My mother’s brows pinch, and she hums while walking around the island to wrap her arms around me with a hug while whispering. “You don’t move the mountain, darling.”

The same thing she’s been reminding me all summer.

Of will versus reality. To keep in mind what a realistic expectation is here.

To remember that no one who tries to move the mountain wins, and I have…just maybe not in the way she intended.

Immediately jumping to tunnels instead.

“Hmm,” I murmur, giving her a quick squeeze before letting go.

All out of responses to make anyone feel better but myself now.

I start to walk out of the kitchen when Ollie prods sullenly. “Can I at least come?”

“No,” I snap, walking past him and tossing out over my shoulder. “And my answer will be the same until you pull your head out of your ass.”

Just like it has been all summer.

I kick the balls of my feet against the pavement as we come to the edge of Lincoln Park, sneakers cushioning the blow so that it only rattles my bones a little.

Just enough to keep me fully present while staring at the place I was pushed out onto over a year ago.

The slice of sidewalk holds no evidence of that day and bothers me because of that fact every damn time I see it.

But I still keep coming back, regardless of the fact that this is basically my version of adrenaline-fueled hell.

That’s before I even get to the torture of the running too.

“How many times around are you thinking?”

I glance up at Talan out of the corner of my eye. “Probably the usual.”

“Until your legs give out, then?” he sighs.

“You bet.” I snort, pulling my phone out of the pocket of my leggings and scrolling through my playlist. “Problem with that?”

“No problem at all, ma’am.”

I turn my head to throw him a glare because he knows I hate that shit and quip. “Want to quit yet?”

“Who knows?” He shrugs, reaching his arms above his head to stretch and smiling widely. “Maybe by the end of this.”

“A girl can dream,” I sigh, looking back down to my playlist and seeing a truly inspired song that has me smirking.

Quickly popping my other headphone in while holding the phone up so that he can see it.

“Try to keep up, Briggs.” Then I press play on “I Don’t Care,” sliding the phone back into the pocket of my leggings and taking off toward the path.

I start up a jog, which after an entire summer of self-imposed athleticism isn’t too bad if I do say so myself.

Running the loop around Lincoln Park over and over again like a damn racehorse until I know every crack in the pavement personally.

All hours of the day.

Sometimes in the morning. Sometimes in the evening.

And if I’m feeling particularly like telling everyone to fuck off that day, I do it at night.

Bodyguard in tow and doing nothing to hide who I am. Music crashing through my ears loud enough to drown out even the echoes in my own head. That knot twisting further and further in my chest with every breath I gasp past it.

No pain, no gain, and all that.

Because there’s a method to my madness here.

My mind drifts back to why this unorthodox display was even necessary in the first place, and the scenery around me starts to blur as the past takes over. Every day of this summer pushing me to try and outrun it. Torturing myself for not seeing it.

The flowers in the car that no one can still figure out how they got there.

The entire drive home with Ollie drilling me with question after question and me sputtering out lame responses because I had kept this from him.

The blowup when I did get home and found out this wasn’t the first time my parents had seen a message like this.

Locking my door that night and lying in bed alone.

All of it twisting me up into a tangled mess right up until the sun rose.

Then the next day happened.

It was the anniversary of where it all began, and there was no way he was going to miss that. So when the knock at the door came, I ran to answer it with Ollie right on my heels. The argument that happened when one of the bodyguards said they had found another note in the mailbox.