Denial (Careless Whispers #1)(83)

There are crashing sounds and muffled gunfire, like a silencer is being used, and my mother and I both jump. And then there is silence. Oh God, the silence is deafening and I wait for my father to come to us, but he does not. I can’t take it anymore. I jerk away from my mother, every instinct I own telling me my father needs help. I open the door and gasp at the sight of him lying in a puddle of blood. I dash forward and fall to my knees.

“Dad. Dad.”

My mother drops down beside me, bursting into tears as she starts begging him to stay alive. “Gun,” my father murmurs. “Ella . . . Get . . . gun.”

I look down to find it at his fingers and I take it. “I have it.”

“Two . . . men.”

The kitchen door bursts open, a man in a mask and all black appearing, and my father hisses, “Shoot,” and instinct takes over. I raise the gun and fire at the man in black, and he tumbles forward. Another man follows him and I fire again. And again. He drops to his knees and falls face first. Sirens begin to sound and my mother is shaking my father.

“Wake up!” she shouts. “Wake up!”

“Ella. Ella. Holy hell!”

Kayden’s worried voice brings me back to the present and I blink to find myself sitting on the floor of the dressing room, clutching the ballerina slippers to my chest, Kayden squatting in front of me. “I’m okay,” I rasp out, but I’m trembling all over, deep, hard shakes that I feel clear to my soul.

Kayden doesn’t hear me though. He’s on his phone. “Nathan,” he says. “Ella passed out. She’s—”

I grab the phone and put it to my ear. “Okay. She’s . . . I’m okay. Don’t worry.” I drop the phone, dampness clinging to my cheeks. “I’m okay.”

His hands pat my arms. “You scared the shit out of me. Your teeth are chattering.”

“It was a . . . flashback. I just . . . I . . . It was bad. Give me . . . a moment to get past it.” I inhale, and I swear the breath feels like glass cutting my throat.

“We need to get you out of here,” Kayden says. “Can you stand?”

I grab his shirt and twist it in my fingers. “I need to tell you what I remembered. I just . . . I need to say it so I don’t forget it. Well . . . no. I won’t forget it. I just need to say it.”

“I’m right here, sweetheart. I’m listening.”

“My father . . .” I inhale and try to calm the trembling running through my body. “Military. He was military, but I think some sort of special unit.” My words are stronger now. I feel the edge easing. “The memory,” I continue. “My father was home for once. I was seventeen.” I swipe at a tear dripping down my cheek and a cold, cold calmness begins to roll through me. “Men came into the house and my father made me and my mother hide in the pantry, like you hid in the closet, Kayden. No wonder you’re so familiar.”

He cups my cheek and I lean into the touch as he says, “You were right. We do know each other. You don’t have to talk about this now.”

“I need to. I can’t explain it, but I need to.” I pause to let the images solidify in my mind. “I heard the struggle between my father and the men in our house. There were shots, but they were muffled. Silencers. I knew they used silencers. After that, there was quiet, and I had the feeling my father needed me. I fought my mother to be free of her hold and I got out of the pantry and he was lying on the ground, bleeding. Dying.” My fingers dig into Kayden’s arms, which I didn’t even realize I was holding. “My father was holding a gun, and the two men who attacked him were still in the house.” My eyes meet Kayden’s. “I killed them, and my only regret is I didn’t do it sooner.” I push to my feet and Kayden follows. “I don’t regret it, the way you said you wouldn’t regret it if you found the people who killed Kevin and Elizabeth.”

His arm wraps my waist, and only then do I realize I was wobbling and he’s kept me from falling. “You saved your mother’s life.”

“But not his. Not my father’s.”

“And no one knows what that feels like more than me.” He wipes the tears from my cheeks. “Let’s go home.”

Home. Now he says home and I want to be happy about that, but there is the ball in my chest that demands answers and actions. “We’re supposed to see the profiler.”

“It can wait, sweetheart.”

“It can’t wait. My father raised a fighter, and I’m going to fight.” I shove against him. “Let go. I need to stand on my own.”

He hesitates, but he releases me and I’m steady now, rejecting all weakness. I hold up the slippers. “I need these. Apparently I’m good with a gun and in ballet slippers. And I want to go to the shooting range, Kayden. Can the profiler meet us there?”

“Ella, I don’t think—”

My hand flattens on his chest. “I need to do this now. Please.”

His hand covers mine, his look probing, concerned, and whatever he sees, the result is his agreement. “I’ll have him meet us there.”



Thirty minutes later, after a silent drive to the outskirts of the city, in which I replay my father’s death far too many times, we arrive at the shooting range and sit at a small cafeteria-style table in the snack area. Tyler, a good-looking thirty-something blond American man, sits across from us.