Wyatt-1(Lane Brothers, Book 1)(11)

Didn’t your alarm bells ring loud and clear the first time you met Bolton Conrad? Didn’t you know from that first slimy handshake that he was no good?

I’d known and steered clear, really not paying enough attention after that to realize I had a real problem with him until the phone calls and the “gifts” had started arriving.

By that time, it was too late and I’d had no defence. I hadn’t saved any of the texts or messages, and the gifts were considered harmless by the police.

Besides, stalking laws are a bitch in a lot of states, and Philly had been no different. By the time one detective took me seriously, Bolton had me in his clutches and I was screwed.

Pulling myself away from those memories with difficulty, I finally snap to attention and look around. I’m alone and free of the handcuffs, able to stand up and move around.

I rush to the door and almost start doing a happy dance when the latch turns easily and the wooden door creaks open.

I peek my head around the door and look out at the corridor. Empty. Good. Since I didn’t undress last night and my shoes are easy to slip into, it’s a matter of seconds before I’m easing my way into the hall and tiptoeing my way down it.

The coast is clear with not a sound to alert me of his nearness, and I take the opportunity to hotfoot it toward the stairs. I don’t slow down until I’ve reached them, and another peek around the wall shows the foyer is unoccupied.

Now all I need to do is get out of the house at a point that’s not in clear sight of the windows and run like hell. I’ve done this before, only that time I had to chew through my rope bindings and make my way out of the cellar I was in.

Not now, don’t think about it now, I warn, tiptoeing down the stairs, my senses on high alert.

The front door is a no-go and I know it, because if Wyatt was being honest, and I have no reason to believe he wasn’t, I still have guards to get past undetected.

For that reason, I turn left at the bottom of the stairs, run silently all the way to what looks to be a huge library crammed with books and to a window at the far end.

We’re still in the south, I can feel it the moment I open the window and the humid air hits me. What I hate seeing when I look out is all the open grass before the tree line starts. I’ll have to run a few too many meters out in the open before hitting cover, but what other option do I have?

At least it isn’t the dry desert like last time. Remember—

Shut up!

I won’t think about that suffering or how a part of me regretted escaping when my thirst and the heat became so great, I was delusional and stumbling around in pain.

If I do, I don’t know that I’d have the courage to climb out of the window and run. Almost dying that way, all that pain and suffering, only to have him snatch my weak body up again and drag me back…

I won’t think about that now. Instead, I ease the window up another notch, looking behind me nervously, and push a leg over the sill. When I hop down and crouch behind the growth of bushes below the window I’m terrified and almost winded by the shallow, nervous breaths huffing out of me.

You can do it, El, just run. Run and keep running till you’re safe.

I obey and dart forward, my eyes trained on the tree line ahead, and my legs hit their stride. I make the wood in a matter of minutes and burst forward through the dense foliage so common to forested areas in the swamplands of the south.

No one yells or comes running, so I’m almost giddy with victory when another five minutes of running takes me farther and farther away from my prison.

All I have to do now is keep going till I reach a road or another house and then I’ll be home free.

Take that, Wyatt, I yell inside my head, doing a mental fist pump.

And to think he actually scared me with all that talk of security and the impossibility of escaping.

Thinking of him now slows me somewhat, and I experience what feels oddly like regret at the thought of leaving him. Okay, I’ll admit it, part of me likes the man and his good-humored quirkiness, and even is tempted to stay.

This same part of me had actually believed him about keeping me safe, even from myself. If I get free of this, I’ll move, obviously, and just go back to my life as it was, with a lot more paranoia and fear, but back all the same.

Do I really want to return to being that ghost of myself after the way he treated me yesterday, making me feel special despite the incessant doubts and fear plaguing me?

No, but whether I do or not, the fact still remains that regretting leaving him is stupid. He’s nuts, crazy, totally out of his mind thinking I’d ever trust him.

Don’t you, El? Didn’t you fall asleep in his arms last night and have the best night’s sleep in years?