SARA
“Are you sure?You never really struck me as a cat person.”
Theo cocked his head and smirked. “What, you know how much I love pussy.”
My eyes rolled into the back of my head and he laughed. Raven hopped up into his lap and he petted her back. She certainly seemed to love him.
I’d been staying at Theo’s for three days, but Ellie had only now brought Raven over, at Theo’s request. She missed me, and if I’m being honest, she must have missed him too. But I felt bad taking over his apartment with all my stuff and my cat and her toys and litter box. It felt like a lot.
“Babe, I love you. And I love this little princess too.” He scratched behind her ears and she started purring.
“I think she’s obsessed with you.”
“Not surprising.”
“Well just let me know if it gets to be too much. I’m sure we can go to Alex and Sam’s.”
“Hey.” He scooted Raven to the couch next to him and pulled me down onto his lap. “I know this is all kind of sudden, and if your house wasn’t set on fire, we probably wouldn’t be shacking up quite yet—”
“No kidding,” I interrupted.
“But,” he continued, as he tucked my hair behind my ear, “I’m glad we are. I want you, Sara. All of you. All the time. I want to come home to you and I want to build a life together.”
I was speechless. I’d thought about all of these things myself, but I’d never considered voicing them so soon. I figured they would scare him off. And I was still nervous about that. But hearing him open up, tell me in no uncertain terms that he wanted me, wanted us, well, that was a gift that I would not take for granted.
I cupped his face in both my hands and leaned down to press a soft kiss on his lips.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For loving me. For choosing to change your whole lifestyle for me.”
“Oh babe, I should be thanking you. It’s not even a question. You’re giving me what I always needed, what I wanted and just never realized. I’m the luckiest bastard in the world. Plus,” he said, smacking the side of my butt, “you’re really damn hot.”
I laughed. “Yeah well, so are you. I guess.”
“You guess? You know what, I’ll take it.” He tilted his head up to kiss me again and I got lost in the passion between us.
The ringing of my cell phone interrupted what promised to be a killer makeout session. Dane had found my phone on the ground next to my porch and returned it to me soon after I got out of the hospital. I’d been getting so much support from people, which was overwhelming, but warmed my heart. I didn’t want to take a single thing for granted.
I answered the call.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
“Hello?” I was about to hang up but then I heard it. Heavy breathing. My heart started beating triple time. I stood up and paced the living room.
“Who is this?” Theo immediately came to my side, a questioning, yet murderous look on his face as he stared at the phone in my hand.
“Well, you’re getting into some trouble now, aren’t you?”
“Who is this?” I repeated. Theo grabbed the phone and put it on speaker.
“I’m offended you don’t know.” Should I know? The voice was scratchy, uncharacteristic of anyone I could think of.
“What do you want?”
“I want what should have happened already. You forget how hard the devil works. I want you in the ground. Soon.”
Click.
“What the fuck?” Theo said, his voice a storm of rage.
“Devil’s Rain.”
My hands shook as I held the phone, still staring at the screen.
“We can try to trace the call again. It’s probably a burner like before, but maybe we’ll get lucky and this asshole slipped up.”
It seemed unlikely. Tears formed under my eyelids as I shut them to keep the world out. I knew this wasn’t resolved, but my naive heart felt so light and free after they’d arrested Lucas, I really thought things were fine. I thought I’d be okay. And foolishly chose to ignore everything else that was in contrast to that. Now I was paying the price.
Would I ever be free of it? Would they come after me? Would the people I loved be caught in the crossfire? Anxious thoughts flooded my mind, one after the other. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just stop living and hope it all went away. But I couldn’t risk someone getting hurt because of me, either. Maybe I needed to leave. Start over somewhere else like I did before. It was irrational, I knew it, but I couldn’t help thinking it was the only solution.
“Stop.”
“What?” I looked at Theo and realized he’d been watching me as this anxiety spiral played out in my head.
“I know you. You’re freaking out, and it’s understandable. I get that you’re scared. But I’m here. You do not have to deal with this alone.” He stepped close and wrapped his strong arms around me. They cocooned me in peace, if only for a moment.
“I just don’t understand. Why does this person want me dead?”
Theo’s jaw ticked, but he held me tighter and kissed the top of my head.
“I don’t know, but I promise we’re going to figure it out and end it.”
I didn’t want to doubt him, but it was hard to see how any of this would end well. I backed out of his arms.
“I, uh, need to get to work soon.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to close the shop for now? You’ve had a crazy few weeks. No one would blame you for taking some time to rest.”
“No. No, I need to stay busy. Plus, if I can’t go home yet, then I need to be there. It’s my second home.”
“I just don’t know if that’s smart. I want to keep you safe, and this person is out there, with easy access to you if you’re keeping to a schedule.”
I knew he was speaking out of concern, but I felt the stubbornness, the anger at the situation bubble up in my gut and start flowing out of my mouth.
“I’m not going to just give up my life because some crazy person with a vendetta is out there. That’s ridiculous.”
“What’s ridiculous is you acting like nothing is wrong.”
“Acting like nothing is wrong? I’m stuck here, not able to go home, getting calls from some person, a dangerous gang, who wants me dead. You think I’m just ignoring it? I don’t know what else to do!”
Theo shook his head, but didn’t say anything else. I immediately regretted the outburst, but for the life of me, couldn’t apologize. I had too much venom in me, and I knew I was directing it at the wrong person, but he was the only one here. And I hated that. I was destroying something so beautiful just because I didn’t know how to handle my fear.
“I just want to go to work and forget about this all for a bit.” I said, eyes on the floor.
Theo nodded. “Then I’ll drive you.”