I stare at him, my stomach dipping at the intensity in his eyes.
Do I trust him?
Nodding my head, I tell him I do because it’s the truth. I don’t need to think about it. The promises in his eyes are all I need to step forward.
“Words, angel. I need words.”
My head tilts back so I can look at him, and I swallow before whispering, “I trust you.”
His gaze flicks between my eyes, assessing me in his usual way before he inclines his head. “I’m gonna take you away for a few weeks. Somewhere no one knows who you are.”
“Okay,” I say, my voice small.
“I promise I won’t let anything else happen to you.”
I want to scream and shout. Tell him I don’t need him to protect me, tell him he can’t tell me that when he doesn’t know what could happen. But the girl inside of me who’s irrevocably broken takes a sigh of relief.
“We need to get going now before Mom wakes up.”
“What? Are we not saying goodbye? Does she—”
“It’s best she doesn’t know where we’re going, and if she asks me, I can’t lie to her face. If she knows, it’s another avenue for someone to be able to find you.”
I frown, watching him for a beat. “You don’t trust her?”
He looks up at the ceiling, exposing his thick throat as he blows out a puff of air. “I don’t trust anyone.”
My eyes widen, the action causing me to wince. My fingers flutter over my eye, and I wish I could look in a mirror and see the damage he did, but I’m afraid it’ll be my undoing. As long as I can’t see my face, I can overcome this. Or that’s what I keep telling myself.
“Yet you’re asking me to trust you?” My lips lift into the smallest smile, but it’s better than the way they’ve been since last night, and when he looks down at me and sees it, he chuckles softly, holding his hand out.
“Do as I say, not as I do.”
Shaking my head, I walk past him, leaving his hand hanging in the air as I walk down the hallway and down the stairs.
“So you’re one of those, huh?”
“One of what?” he asks, following me, and when I get to the living room, I turn around, giving him my full attention.
“The kind of person who wants everyone to do as he says but doesn’t follow his own advice.”
He watches me for a beat, probably trying to work out if I’m being serious or not, but when all I do is stare at him, he lets out a long breath.
“I’ve learned it’s the only way I don’t get hurt.”
The vulnerability behind his eyes tells me there’s more to Luke than he lets on, but as I’m about to open my mouth and ask him about it, we both hear the floorboards creaking upstairs.
Luke practically flies across the living room, gathering a couple of bags and his keys before handing me a brand new pair of sneakers and ushering me out the front door into his SUV, just in time for his mom to open the door and watch us reverse out of the driveway, her eyes wide and body taut.
LUKE
Silence has never bothered me. I can sit in a room full of people without anyone talking and I’d be comfortable. But the silence that surrounds me in the SUV on the way to the house makes me itch to fill it with anything.
Music, my voice, the sounds of nature through the slightly open window letting a breeze into the car.
I hesitate several times over, afraid I’ll say something to trigger her. Never in my life have I been scared to say something. I’m the kind of person who says what he wants when he needs to. But right now, my brain’s telling my mouth to move but nothing’s coming out.
> Flicking my gaze over to Lily in the passenger seat as I pull up to a stop sign, I stare at her profile; her eyes closed, her cheek pressed against the window and her knees against her chest.