It's all about drawing lines. People say that you cause the problems because you refuse to work on their terms. You don't concede? You draw a line. And that is something they can't abide. Then they blame you for the consequences they choose to inflict. But it's not on you. You didn't choose anything except to draw a line and refuse to step over it. Your line versus his line. Yours preserves people, gives them freedom, choices, hope. Theirs serves their own interests and sacrifices others to the god of ego. Your line must stand. And theirs must fall. - Felicity's journal, April 4

 

I used to think that there were two sides to every story, but now I realize that's not always the case. In some stories, there is a bad guy. Because this is all on you. You had a thousand chances to make the right choice, to take care of the people you claimed to love, and you consistently fell back to your default – self-worship. And where, exactly, did your family fall in all this? It was apparent to me that you didn't love your children; you loved your progeny; you imagined your legacy. And your children were on the way to being sucked into the vortex of your vanity. – Felicity’s letter to Brendon, April 12

 

March 20

As Felicity grew aware, the memory of a frigid pulsing pain evoked the helplessness of her last thoughts before she had lost consciousness.

Memory robbed her of her ability to process her surroundings.

A grey fog clouded her vision.

Sounds echoed distantly, a muddle against the cacophony of her misery.

Even the sandy pebbles that had pelted her skin, whipped up by the tempest around her, had barely registered their sting.

Not that the fall from the truck bed had physically injured her.

Not that her body throbbed from the drug that had laced her wine.

No, Felicity's whole being ached with the betrayal of her husband, and Felicity hadn't known or seen anything but agony from the moment she knew.

That was why the blackness initially had come as such a relief.

A week before, Felicity would have judged a person who craved darkness.

Hell, I would have judged someone twenty-four hours ago, she mused.

Not anymore.

Twenty-four hours ago, Felicity had been stupid.

Twenty-four hours ago, Felicity had been naive.

Now, Felicity didn't want to open her eyes, didn't want to know what lurked in the shadows cast from the light filtering into her hotel room.

Light was an illusion anyway.

What lurked in the shadows – that was real. All the agony of the unknown and how it could destroy everything she had thought was her life. How could she predict from one moment to the next? How could she keep going forward?

Despite squeezing her eyes shut so tightly that the corners ached, Felicity still sensed the pattern of light that seeped through the geometric print of the flimsy hotel curtains. Her chest grew tight and her breaths shallow. She could picture the door – she could feel it across the room – and she knew the locks on the windows. How she wished she could forget their existence! The points of weakness that could allow him access. If she listened to her denial, she would turn her back to the door, imagining it away. Instead, she knew that she needed to keep it in her sight. Even when she closed her eyes for a few transient seconds of sleep, she had to preserve her line of sight to the door. Felicity wondered if she would ever walk into a room again, unaware of the exact location of the exits.

I won't see it, she forced herself to believe, slowing her respiration. I'll just will myself back to sleep.

But even as she suppressed her vision, another sense tore her out of her lassitude.

The sound wrenched her lids apart, sent her heart hammering into her chest, and left her staring blindly into the darkness that hovered between her eyes and the dingy, smoke-sullied texture of the Sheetrock ceiling.

The only thing worse than seeing what lurked in the shadows was not seeing it.

Knowing it was there.

Knowing it could hurt her, cause her so much agony that she actively wanted to die.

That was worse than seeing it coming.

With her eyes open, maybe she could prepare herself or step out of the way – or jump in front of a bus so she could choose her own pain.

When the noise ricocheted off the night-distant walls again, she recognized the gentle clattering of a doorknob as someone tried to trick his way through the cheap hotel lock.

Felicity scooted up in the bed, her back pressed against the particle-board headboard, the covers pulled up tightly under her chin. Her eyes riveted wide as she anticipated the opening of the door, her heart pounding in her chest.

Thanks to her late-afternoon encounter yesterday, she could easily visualize the “tan man” – lightly tanned skin, pale brown hair, khaki pants and shirt – every part of him bland and unimpressive. And everything about him terrifying to Felicity. Especially the fact that he worked for her husband.

Yesterday, the tan man had followed her through the roads of Quido. Yesterday, he had spoken on his phone about nabbing her from the street.

If she’d had her phone or access to the web, she could have dug up her brother’s number – asked him to come get her. She kicked herself for not memorizing it. And she couldn’t contact her husband anyway.

Brendon! her mind sobbed before she could stuff the lament back into the realm of oblivion.

“Absolutely not!” she reprimanded herself aloud. Not now. He doesn't deserve a passing thought. Letting her mind go back to that vacuum of torture would completely incapacitate her, and though she had wished to die several times over the past day, she didn't particularly want to be stabbed or shot – or kidnapped again.

When the sliver of dawn broke around the edges of the door, all thought ceased, her mind arrested in anxious anticipation. She groped blindly on the nightstand for a pen, something to stab into the eyes of an unwanted guest. As the fissure grew larger, a broad masculine form slid into view, cast in deeper shadow by the light behind it. Felicity held her breath. It was Brendon. He had found her. Even when he had passed through the opening and closed the door behind him, she could not budge. Finally, she found her mind swimming, and she realized she had to breathe.

That’s when the scent hit her, and images began to flash rapid fire across her vision like an old-fashioned movie. Not terror. Not her husband.

A late-night party, the air hanging with a spicy mist that obscured her senses.

A blue, low-cut dress with a slit that ran to her inner thigh.

A drink-sodden series of moments when Brendon had disappeared and left her alone - alone with the smell that now filled her dim, dingy hotel room.

A helplessness as Felicity felt herself lowered into the back of a running sedan.

An overwhelming scent when the man who now stood before her had leaned over her and placed an inexplicable kiss on her forehead as he laid her in the back seat of the car.

A series of strange and confusing words. And that sense of comfort. “Don't panic. You'll be okay. I'll come and find you. I won't let them hurt you.”

And now in the doorway of her hotel room.

Jase had come.