Without looking back at him - and with as much dignity as I could muster - I started the long, long walk up the lawn to the main house.
I’d come tearing across this lawn a million times as a kid. It never seemed so huge and impassable as it did now.
But I could feel Derek watching me as I held my head high, and so I was acutely aware of each step. I watched for divots and ruts. The last thing I needed was to turn my ankle again.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I climbed the wide wooden stairs up to the front porch. The view was best up here, but I couldn’t savor it. Not with Derek still watching me from a distance.
What the hell was he doing here?
Derek Granger was a myth, a legend. He was the wildest guy, who threw the wildest parties and everyone adored him. He knew how to keep you dancing and laughing until dawn and always made sure you were doing exactly that. He was that guy. Made of magic.
That was the Derek I had in my head, a blurry tornado of bad decision-making.
What was he doing here?
In high school, I’d watched him from afar, with the jealousy that only an awkward sophomore can muster for a confident senior. Maybe if we'd been closer in age, I would have worked up the courage to do something with my crush.
But by the time I started finding myself - crawling out from underneath Violet’s long shadow - he’d already graduated. And then I’d left.
And now he was here.
And everything was crashing down. All at once.
Panic rose up, clawing at my throat. The familiar taste of bright copper pennies burst in the back of my mouth, a squirt of adrenaline to clear my head so I could figure out what I needed to do next.
I swallowed hard and went to the door.
The key slid easily into the lock. I took one more deep breath, ignored the buzzing of my text message alert on my phone, and walked inside.
The house smelled silent.
I inhaled the scent of being shut up for a long time. The smell of old air that hasn’t transmitted laughter or conversation. Air gone stagnant when not swirled around my grandfather’s enormous yawns. Stale, settled air.
I brushed away an errant tear. “Grandpa.” I’d had nothing, but he’d changed all that. “Thank you,” I whispered.
Guilt wanted to weigh me down, and I deserved it. But I couldn’t let it. Not yet.
I walked into the kitchen and opened the cupboards, then ran myself a glass of water from the tap. The water still tasted faintly of sulfur. The taste of childhood visits, the smell of safety. It was so familiar I nearly called out to see if Grandpa wanted me to bring him a glass too.
But his absence was everywhere, as noticeable as if it was a presence unto itself. The house was empty, all the surfaces coated in a thin layer of dust.
Dust would never dare to settle in his house if my Grandpa were alive. It knew better than to take on the likes of Gerald Dolan.
It was a breezy fall day and the wind whistled through the gaps in the windows. That sound used to frighten me as a kid. My overactive imagination called up the torment of lost souls, ghosts wandering the house at night, the ice maker in the refrigerator supplying the clacking chains. Hearing it now was like hearing from an old friend.
For the first time in ten years, I felt like I could draw a full breath.
I was safe.
So long as no one else knew I was here, I was safe.
But Derek knew.
I needed a plan to get rid of him. Drive him out and buy his silence.
“Okay,” I said slowly, trying to rally my flagging resources. My brain felt numb and flabby, like I was both drunk and hungover at the same time. “Okay, come on… Think…”
My text alert buzzed again. Mindlessly, I drew my phone out of my back pocket.
The entire screen was clogged with text messages from Killian.
Today: 5:13AM Where are you?
5:16AM: Where the FUCK are you?
5:19AM: Missed Call
5:20AM: Missed Call
5:33AM: You’d better be dead in a gutter right now
5:35AM: Missed Call
5:38AM: Answer your FUCKING PHONE
5:38AM: Missed Call
And on and on. Every three minutes for hours. A barrage of anger and begging in real time.
And then it buzzed again.
Habit - the result of ten years of training to be at his beck and call - kicked in. To my horror, I hit the Answer button, but I caught myself before I said hello.
He waited, of course. Waited for me to do what he expected. The fact that I wasn’t answering, wasn’t following the rules, had him reeling.
I was reeling for the same reason.
He finally cleared his throat. “Jane?” he sputtered.
I’d never heard him sound so unhinged.
My fingers curled tighter around the phone. Killian was the one who’d given me the stage name Jane Doe, and for years that was the name that I answered to. When Derek called me Aria, I almost asked who he was talking to.
“Jane,” Killian said again, more collected this time. “I know you’re listening. What are you doing to me? I’ve been so worried about you.”
My heart leaped. Like it always did when he spouted his pretty words. I opened my mouth to answer him, to reassure and soothe him…
“Where are you?”
I flung the phone to the floor, then scrambled back from it until my back was pressed against the wall. Jamming my fingers into my mouth, I whimpered quietly as his muffled curses reverberated into the floor. A spike of fresh pain flared in my rib cage and I hugged my other arm tightly over my chest. I took a deep, steadying breath…
Then I jammed my fingers into the bruise.
I gasped, then let out a strangled yelp around my fingers. It hurt. It hurt so much.
But right there alongside the pain was the anger I’d been hoping to summon.
I scrambled back across the floor to hang up on him.
But not fast enough.
“Wherever you are, you’d better pray you get back here on your own,” he was shouting. “Because if I find you first…”
I jammed my finger down and ended the call, then curled into a ball on the floor.
Ten years I’d given him. Along with my career, my future, and my life. I’d covered up the bruises and I’d smiled through the pain because…
Because what else did I have but what he’d given me?
“Fuck you,” I whispered to the phone. “I’ve got something here you can never take.”
But my throat tightened and my stomach twisted in a knot. Killian’s voice still snarled in my head. Wherever you are, you’d better pray you get back here on your own. Because if I find you first…
I’d cut him off before he could finish, but I knew what he was about to say next. If he found me first, he’d kill me.
My fingers went to the bruises on my side.
This was the only place in the world that was even partially mine. Anywhere else, he would find me. I was too recognizable. Too well-known.
And Killian was looking for me.
I’d come here because it was mine, and it felt like home.
But now I knew for certain I had no place else to go.