Chapter Five
Luke
I pursue Ana with a sense of momentary comfort with the safety of our surroundings.
The security system is on, Kurt is tied up and guarded by two trusted, skilled friends, and our enemies, at least some of them, have given us three more days to deliver the package. A package I don’t have. That’s a mountain I must climb, a problem I must dissect, but for now, Ana is my focus.
Ana is everything.
With her shoulders back, she charges ahead, and I decide that despite all the things I could say to her, about the past and the future, wanting a future with her, it all comes back to actions, being present, being by her side, understanding what she needs from me. I can’t know what that means if I don’t show up, and I don’t ask. But I’m here now, and it felt as if we were headed toward the light at the end of the dark tunnel.
Until now.
Until Kurt’s return.
He’s shifted the mood, and with his presence, there’s a distinct uncertainty in the air, about our lives and our futures. Because if nothing was as it seems, how can we possibly know what is real?
I feel that. Ana has to be feeling it magnified by a hundred.
And while I know I should be happy for Ana’s reconnection with Kurt, nothing about his presence feels right. It’s as if the ground opened up and a sword rose from the deepest depths of the ground, waiting for us to fall upon it and die.
Ana will not die. On the Lord above, I swear I will be the sword that protects her.
The way Kurt’s return tests the delicate bond we’ve sewn, stirs possessiveness inside me. With it, the wholly male side of me burns to reclaim her in every possible way, before Kurt somehow rips her out of my arms and my life. I’m aware of her body, the sweet sway of her hips, aware of how damn much I want to kiss her again, touch her again. Talk is messy. And not the right kind of messy.
Ana reaches the upper level of the house and disappears out of my view. I’m a couple of seconds behind her, following her into the master bedroom that once was Kurt’s, and later Kasey’s. She’s never called it her own, declaring it cursed, as everyone who claimed it, died, or at least pretended to die, in Kurt’s case. But the room was never cursed. Actions lead to reactions. And if we believe Kurt, Kasey’s actions fucked us all.
I don’t believe Kurt on much right now, but it’s a little too easy to use Kasey as a fall guy.
This is why me and Ana need to get right with each other.
All in.
That’s the ending to this story.
Me. Her. Married.
Fuck the rest of the world.