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That was it.

I didn’t ask anything else.

I sped down there and found her crying on the office steps. I’d jogged to her with my arms wide open and held her as she pleaded for her father to come back. That was three hours ago. Now she was here, wrapped in every blanket Nicola could find, curled up on the couch like she was trying to make herself smaller so nothing could hurt her. I sat on the floor beside her, back against the couch, flipping through TV channels without watching a single one.

She shifted slightly, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Her eyes were red-rimmed, tired in a way that made something in my chest tighten every time I looked at her.

“I’ll go first,” she said, like she needed to fill the silence before it swallowed her.

“Alright,” I murmured.

She sniffled. “I really want to live somewhere with a lot of open land so I can live amongst horses and sheep, you know? Like Ireland, maybe?” There was a faint softness in her voice when she said it, like she could see it. Like it was somewhere she could breathe again.

“You’d like Ireland,” I responded.

She looked over at me through the edge of the blanket. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Green. Rainy. Full of excuses to stay inside and drink tea all day.”

That earned a small laugh out of her.

“I don’t even drink tea,” she said.

“You would in Ireland,” I told her seriously. “It’s the law.”

She snorted, then immediately regretted laughing too hard and winced, curling back into the blanket. We’d been asking each other random questions under the guise of distraction, but I was taking in the information and storing it in a folder called “What I Love About Evie” that was currently bursting at the seams.

“I’d love to live in Ireland too,” I said with a smirk as she giggled. Every answer she’d given, I’d said the same too. And I wasn’t even trying to make her laugh with my answers. Okay, maybe just a little. But I also genuinely wanted the same things she wanted. Her momentary happiness was enough to tame the deep-rooted pull inside that wanted to join her underneath the blanket and hold her until it meant something more, until we could give the unspoken connection between us a voice.

“Come on Jackson, that can’t be your answer…to all of them,” she complained through a yawn, exhausted from the tears she shed all afternoon. I turned the volume down on the TV absentmindedly.

“What can’t?”

“Agreeing with me,” she said, eyes half closed. “You don’t even think.”

I let out a small breath through my nose. “You sure about that?”

She hummed like she didn’t believe me. I felt my heart pinch as her eyes fluttered closed, grateful that she could sleep without the weight of her grief for a few hours. I reached over and pulled the blanket up a little higher over her shoulder without waking her. My hand lingered there longer than it should. “I’ll go wherever you go, Evie,” I admitted quietly. She didn’t open her eyes, but her mouth moved upwards slightly while her hand slipped out from under the blanket and rested loosely near mine. Not touching—just close enough that she could if she wanted to.

“You should know that by now.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EVIE

Present Day

December 21st, 1992

It was impossible to sleep while the man in the basement begged for his life. Gut-wrenching bellows of his agony and defiance filled the silence of the night, creating a horrific soundtrack that rang throughout the farmhouse, playing on a continuous loop.

I squeezed my eyes shut while my heart hammered in my chest. “Fuck you!” I flinched as a sharp crack echoed through the floorboards.

“That's all you’ve got?!” the man shouted before a muffled grunt followed.

I tossed and turned all night until I accepted defeat, staring up at the dark ceiling until the sun seeped into the room. Orange rays of hope peeked out from behind the curtains, knowing the beast would hide away in its presence. Wayne never went downstairs during the day unless he needed to—he preferred to attack under the cloak of darkness, ambushing his prey while the rest of the world slept.

My eyes traced the faded floral wallpaper above the laundry sink as warm water filled the bucket. Soap bubbles floated in the air as the water splashed out and onto my forearms. My body was sluggish and heavy today, moving half a second slower than normal. I hadn't slept a wink, and was expected to bathe the new man downstairs, which meant I'd be cleaning off his dried blood because Wayne hated it when he couldn't see the injuries he’d inflicted under a thick coating of blood.