Leaving her to dispose of the ruined teddy and start cleaning the kitchen, I turn to Mum and Stella.
Letting out a sigh, I drag a chair over.
“Are you both okay?”
* * *
By the time we’d cleaned up the mess we’d made in the kitchen and made sure that the house was secure, my shoulder was aching—not that I was going to openly admit that—and I was more than ready to take my girl home.
Confident that Mum was safe and that she wasn’t going to do anything stupid, Carl drove us both home, promising to have Stella’s baby delivered back as good as new.
Theo was out, so after instructing me to sit my arse down on the sofa, Stella made us both a seriously impressive hot chocolate with all the trimmings, sat down beside me, and stared at whatever I’d thoughtlessly put on the TV.
Melancholy ripples through the room, the TV barely even loud enough to hear as we lose ourselves in our thoughts.
“This isn’t going to end, is it?” Stella says sadly after the longest time of just hugging her mug in her hands.
“Of course it is. We’re smarter than him.” Although, the words taste bitter on my tongue as I even say them. He’s proving that he is, in fact, smarter than us time and time again.
“It doesn’t seem to be getting us very far right now, Seb.”
“I know. I just…” I trail off, not really having anything to say. “Evan is running the security footage at Mum’s place, see if we can see anything. If not, we just need to trust that we can outsmart him at some point.”
Stella swallows nervously. “We need to get out and give him opportunities to strike. We can’t allow him to follow us to school with this shit. We can’t put all those lives at risk.”
“Agreed. But I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to try something at school. The security in that place is insane.”
“So you’re saying maybe that’s the place to catch him?"
“Maybe. But you’re right about everyone else. He’s already caused enough damage.”
She lets out a sigh and settles back into the cushions once more, resting her feet in my lap.
“I hate this,” she says, sounding exhausted.
“It’ll get better. I fucking promise you.”