Page 83 of The Thinnest Air

CHAPTER 37

MEREDITH

Eight Days Ago

I wake with a start, my entire body jerking, my consciousness pouring over me like a bucket of ice water, only I can’t move. Plastic cuts into my ankles, securing me to the legs of a metal chair in a small rustic kitchen.

It’s dark in here, save for the light above the stove. The heady scent of mildew mingles with the sooty odor of burning logs in the next room.

A spot on the back of my head throbs in time with my quickening pulse.

My arms are asleep from the elbows down. I pull as hard as I can, but they’re tied tight with what I imagine to be a zip tie.

The last thing I remember is sitting in my car behind the grocery store, being startled by a tap at my window, and then climbing out when I saw Ronan standing there.

I told him he scared me, that he shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.

Everything went dark after that.

“You’re awake.” Ronan stands in the doorway of the kitchen, looking like a grim shadow in the dark. “For a second I was worried I hit you too hard.”

My vision moves in and out of focus. He steps closer, and my body tenses.

“Why?” I manage to ask. “I don’t understand.”

The man standing before me is a stranger. A stranger with a twisted smile, his once kind eyes replaced with something darker, something unstoppable.

“What are you going to do with me?” I ask, my words jumbling into one. My own words are barely audible, forced air leaving my lips in an uncertain gasp. The whoosh of my pounding heart fills my ears, a reminder that this moment is real, that I’m not in the midst of a nightmare.

Ronan stands before me now, lowering his gaze to mine and cupping my chin in his hand. “Do you honestly think I’m going to hurt you, Meredith?”

He laughs through his nose.

“Iloveyou,” he says. “I just want to be with you.” Ronan rests his hands on the tops of my thighs. “That’s all I’veeverwanted.”

Kissing my trembling mouth, he breathes me in.

My stomach rolls, my body recoiling at his touch.

“You’ll learn to love me again,” he says, wrongfully assuming I loved him once. “I promise, Meredith. It’s you and me forever now.”

CHAPTER 38

GREER

Day Eleven

Harris’s phone is still off. The seats at our gate are beginning to fill. I can’t stop twitching.

“Do you want a coffee?” I ask Ronan. Feigning normalcy is proving to be more challenging than I expected. “I think we’re boarding in ten minutes, but I can grab—”

“No.” Ronan cuts me off. All morning he’s barely looked my way, barely said more than a handful of words.

“I’m going to grab myself one.” I rise.

“Line’s probably too long,” he says. “And it’s five gates over. You won’t make it back in time.”

I know he’s right, but I also don’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking I’m a malleable woman.