Keep Me Safe (Slow Burn #1)(12)

In the hallway she saw Caleb, his expression grim, his hair looking unkempt as though he’d been dragged out of bed to fly hundreds of miles to where she was. She glanced at the bedside clock and realized that he hadn’t slept at all. It was in the early A.M. hours and she’d called him just hours before. He truly must have flown out the instant they’d rung off.

She frowned, her brow furrowing. Why would he have dropped everything to come to her? Yes, she’d said he owed her. She would have said anything at all to get him to help her. But that didn’t mean he’d actually do as she’d asked. Or rather begged in her desperation.

And yet here he was. Standing outside her door. Waiting for her to open it. If only she could make herself get rid of the one thing that gave her the illusion of safety. A dead-bolted solid door. One that would be extremely difficult for one man to break down if he wanted inside.

For a moment she simply couldn’t get her hands to cooperate. They trembled as she lifted one to unlock the dead bolt. She fumbled with it for several long seconds, unable to get it to work properly for her.

Her palms were sweaty. Even her knees shook. She recognized the signs for what they were. Panic attacks certainly weren’t alien to her, even if they’d only began eighteen long months ago when a killer had escaped the grasp of the police and then single-mindedly began his hunt for her.

By the time she managed to finally free the door, her breaths were coming in rapid bursts. Her chest constricted painfully as she tried to suck in air, but it was as though there were a solid barrier preventing oxygen from reaching her lungs.

She hastily took a step back when Caleb filled the open doorway. She kept backing away, her vision growing hazy, her hands fluttering wildly in her panic.

Caleb took one look at her and swore long and hard. He reached back only long enough to once again secure the door but when he turned his attention back to her, she felt her legs give way and she sank like a deflated balloon to her knees.

Her hands flew out in front of her, slapping noiselessly against the carpeted floor in an effort to prevent her fall. Caleb was beside her in an instant, his strong hands hooking underneath her armpits. He lifted her effortlessly and before she could muster any panic over her proximity to him he plopped her gently down on the edge of the bed but was careful to keep one hand on her shoulder to steady her.

“Breathe, Ramie,” he said in a soothing, even tone. “Breathe before you pass out.”

She closed her eyes, tears stinging the lids. She hated the helplessness that seemed to grip her with growing frequency. Control was something she valued, was something she needed in an effort to maintain her sanity. But over the past months she had been anything but in control. She could feel herself gradually sliding away with each passing day. When would it end? Would it ever truly end for her? Peace was an elusive, taunting desire. Just one night where she slept free of the monsters she’d helped imprison and the torment they caused—still caused in her shattered mind.

“Ramie, look at me.”

Startled by the firmness of his command and his terse tone, her eyelids fluttered open and her gaze lifted falteringly to his. Then he lowered himself to one knee in front of her so she didn’t have to crane her neck to look up at him. He gathered her hands in his, ignoring her visible flinch at his touch.

She braced herself for the tide of emotion to swamp her. To be filled with whatever darkness he hid from the rest of the world. Her gift was a sick twist of fate. As though fate was playing a cruel joke and laughing at her expense. Because she could only sense the bad in people. Underlying evil. Malevolence or bad intentions. She was never able to share the good. People’s happiness, their joy, their celebration of life. Only what they tried to hide, what they never wanted others to know about them.

She could ferret out people’s deepest, darkest secrets as though she were somehow responsible for being the judge and jury over their conscience. It wasn’t a gift she wanted. Certainly wasn’t something she’d ever asked for. She wasn’t qualified to cast judgment. She only wanted to survive, to live. To enjoy something as simple as an ordinary day without the oppressive weight of so much evil bearing down on her. Was that so much to ask? At times she felt as though Ramie St. Claire no longer existed, that she’d become the very evil she tried so hard to extinguish.

But as Caleb’s hands tightened around hers, all she could feel was unwavering resolve. No blackness, no evil taint on his soul. And it wasn’t as though she picked up on his resolve because her mind had touched his. It was clear in his eyes, his expression. Any idiot could see that he was determined, but then she’d never thought him anything else. After all, he’d tracked her down, ruthlessly forcing her to help find and save his sister.

She should be furious. She should be screaming at him for the ultimate betrayal. He’d sent her back to hell. And yet she couldn’t summon anything but the yawning numbness overtaking her with every passing day that her own death approached. Because the man hunting her would find her. It wasn’t a matter of if but when. She was only delaying the inevitable. Fighting for each new day and hoping it wasn’t her last. And it was no way to live. So much fear. And . . . ​resignation. It should fill her with self-loathing that she’d accepted the inevitability of her death. It made her weak. Like she’d given up. But if she’d truly given up all hope, she wouldn’t have called Caleb in her desperation. She wouldn’t have reached out for help and protection.