Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(79)
But even more than that, I want to let her know it wasn’t me, that I understood what she said to me. But Stone’s right—for all the beating I did on the man, I may as well have killed him in front of her.
She’s better off without me. Better off free.
Sometimes I follow her, just to make sure she seems okay. Out to eat with that lawyer. Going to the corner market by her motel. Walking at the park with her friend, the blind woman. She never even told me about her, which just shows I was deluded to think we had something. She’s being followed by Feds, but I don’t know if she knows that. I thought about getting a message to her, to tell her to be careful, but what does it matter? Abby doesn’t do anything illegal. She doesn’t need to be careful around the Feds.
She had a shitty childhood and turned out good. I went the other direction.
She hasn’t said anything about us, but just to be safe, we’ve temporarily moved out of the Bradford into the old mill where we sometimes stay.
But if she went to the Bradford, I’d know she was looking for me. She never does.
Hey, I’m happy for her. She’s going to be okay. Soon she’ll move back to her home near the Kingman, and I’ll never see her again. Back with her kind.
She even looks happy. Why not? She’s not my prisoner anymore. Not getting shoved around by some lowlife who can’t keep his hands off her, whose idea of protection is terrifying her and drugging her and f*cking her. Sometimes I wonder how much of what she said in the library was real, and how much was just Stockholm Syndrome. Temporary insanity. And that bit in the governor’s bedroom—I haven’t forgotten that, of course. I am strong enough. Strong enough to tell you no. Strong enough to know you’re better than this. Strong enough to motherf*cking love you.
Did she mean it? Or was she just trying to keep me from killing the man? I guess it worked.
I’ll be honest: I think about taking her captive again. All the time.
I think about the way she felt, struggling under my power out in the woods that day, and the way she collapsed underneath me in pleasure. I think about her in the library, the way she looked at me, rattling off those library terms. I think I could make her warm up to me again, just like she warmed up to me the first time, but I wouldn’t do it to her.
She had that press conference where she said she was frightened for her life the whole time. Maybe she was.
Either way, Stone was right. She was dangerous, because right now, I’m worse off than dead, and it’s all because of her—I miss her so much it makes me want to die. Stone promises I’ll feel better, but he doesn’t get it. There’s a hole in me, and wishing I could see her and touch her is all I have left to fill it.
Rescuing those boys who are still captive out there, held by the ring that held us, is driving everything with us now, and it takes my mind off her sometimes. Because every day is about planning how to find them, working connections. We’re all freaking out that there are more boys. We know better than anyone what they’re going through. We have to get to them.
I shadow her to a bookstore during a free afternoon—I’m wearing this stupid hat and glasses, but I’m a fugitive, and the disguise works. I browse right on the other side of the shelves from her. I’m so close I can hear her breathe, I can smell her honeysuckle scent, and my chest aches. The urge to shove through to the other side and grab her and take her away with me is so strong, I’m shaking.
She buys a book of memoirs. Some painter from fifty years ago, and then she goes out and gets into a rental car and drives away. Passing the time. She’s stuck here for the duration of the trial. She can’t even return to college because of me.
I go back into the store and get the same book. Stone asks about it when I get back to the mill. I shrug and say it looked interesting. I don’t tell him how the book connects me to her. It’s a little psycho; let’s face it. Maybe deep down I still have this hope she’ll come back, and poof, we’ll have something to talk about.
But that won’t happen.
It makes more and more sense that she was terrified the whole time. Maybe every time she looked at me like she wanted me, like she got hot for me, like she motherf*cking loved me, it was coming from the fear.
And so I do the only thing for her I can: I force myself to stop following her. I do what I promised I never would: I let her go.
Chapter Forty-One
Abigail
Two weeks later, plainclothes Feds show up at my motel room door.
They bring me to a different jail, a federal holding center, for questioning. It’s not as nice, and I don’t get to make any calls for forty-eight hours—not even to my lawyer. They grill me—hard. I’m an accessory to the murder of the governor. They say they’ve got a witness whose identity is sealed. I need to tell what I know.
I stick to my story. Finally I get to have my lawyer. She says the interrogation is bullshit, but she can’t make it go away. I can see in her eyes that she suspects I know more than I’m telling. I guess everybody thinks so. Maybe it was too much to expect them to believe Grayson dragged me across the nation and all over without my consent.
I’ll never tell. I can’t stop thinking about young eyes staring out from the back of a milk carton, and nobody ever came for them, and nobody ever saved them.
“You’ll do time,” my lawyer says. “Accessory to murder.”