The truth is that I had every intention of having sex with the dead boy on the floor. That would be the price I paid for freedom. This boy would help me escape Aaron, and I understood the implicit cost of that. But I had given no advance on that payment, and so I can deny it without fear of Aaron seeing a lie in my face.
Aaron grabs the dead boy by the collar and hauls his body up, grotesquely dangling there, ruined head lolling, a bit of brain caught in his hair.
“You’re telling me you don’t know him?”
“No, I do,” I say. “I’ve seen him at the park when I walk Lacey. He’s talked to me a couple of times and—” I inhale sharply and turn away. “I thought he was just being nice. Friendly, you know? He liked Lacey, and he brought her treats, and he asked about her, not me, so I figured...”
“You figured this boy was interested in your dog?” A disgusted snort. “Go clean up. Then get your ass back here and help me with this.”
I bolt up from the dream, heaving breaths. My gaze darts about the darkness, my heart hammering, hands clawing the sheets, certain I’m back there, in the bedroom I’d shared with Aaron.
I smell mildew first. I have woken in this room cursing that stench so many times, but now I gulp it greedily as proof that I am not with Aaron. I am in my house. My own house. Safe.
Safe?
Not quite, but making my way in that direction.
At whose expense?
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to ignore the voice, the one that doesn’t sound like Aaron or my mother, the one that uncomfortably resembles the one luxury I truly cannot afford to possess: a conscience.
I dream of that poor dead boy, the one whose death rests on my conscience more than Jasmine Oleas’s. I did not pull the trigger, but I still got him killed. He only wanted to help. Okay, he wanted something in return for helping, but it’s not as if he demanded payment in advance. He was just hopeful. A horny, hopeful, decent kid trying to do a decent thing, rescuing a damsel in honest distress. And he died for it.
Now I’m doing the same with Daisy. Pulling her into my problem, and unlike that poor kid, she doesn’t have any idea what she’s gotten herself into. She thinks she’s found a place to hole up, maybe make a few bucks doing honest work, and in return, I am putting her into the crosshairs of a monster, just as I did with that boy.
Except Liam is not a monster. He’s just a garden-variety controlling, abusive asshole. For all his fancy clothes and fancy cars and fancy bottles of fancy booze, he’s a low-level hustler who pulls in most of his income from a legitimate job. Oh, he’d like to do better. He’d like to be a player, like Aaron. But he’s still the guy who’s half-convinced I’m his actual girlfriend. The guy who sends me flowers and takes me to parties and always asks, “How was it for you?” after sex.
Not a monster. Still my jailer. Still a threat.
Is it possible Liam was the one who broke into my house? Trying to spook me into coming to live with him? Yanking me out of my den and dragging me to a tighter cage? Yes, and I’m deluding myself if I pretend otherwise. When I thought I spotted someone outside tonight, my gut said it was Liam—or someone he sent to spook me—before I realized it was just Daisy.
I feel under threat, and I am preparing to act... and using Daisy to help me. That’s what the dream truly means. I fear another foiled escape plan where an innocent pays the price.
I stretch in bed, tilting my head back, and I catch a flicker of light overhead. One flash, and it’s gone. I rise on my elbows and stare up at the crack in the ceiling. My first thought is that it’s another thing I need to ask Daisy to fix—she’d respectfully stayed out of my room during her assessment. My second thought is that Daisy isn’t going to be around long enough to fix it. And my third thought?
Did I just see a light through that crack?
A light in the attic at two in the morning?
It happened so fast that I only had the faintest impression of illumination, but I’d been looking straight at that crack, and I’d definitely seen light.
Daisy is in my attic.
In my attic at two a.m., when she has absolutely no excuse to be up there.
I slide from bed, making as little noise as I can. Then, moving in the darkness, I scoop up my phone, and find my gun and head into the hall.
As I glidealong the hall, I pause at Daisy’s door. I know her room will be empty, but I still stop to check. The door is shut. I grip the knob and turn slowly. The latch disengages, and I give the door the softest push.
It doesn’t move.
I twist the knob again as I crouch to be sure I’m actually opening it. The latch clicks back into place and then retracts when I turn it the other way. Through the crack, I see the faint glow of moonlight, meaning the latch is definitely retracted. The door doesn’t have a lock. It’d been my room when Maeve was alive, so I’m well acquainted with the lack of a lock.
I try the door again. This time, it gives a soft thump, as if hitting something. Thumps and stops.
Daisy has jammed the door. I don’t know how, but she’s a carpenter. She’d know ways to make it stay shut even when she’s gone. I’m sure I could break in with a hard shove, but that would only give her time to zip out of the attic and reappear in the hall.
I was just in the bathroom.