Camden (The Henchmen MC 18)

"But then the unthinkable happened," I went on, watching as Cam's face went sad. He knew what was coming.

The unthinkable could only be one thing.

My mom died.

And I had been so blithely unaware.

She'd gotten off her shift before I had, so it didn't surprise me that she had passed out before I got in. She was older than me, and I could barely make it to my bed most nights.

According to the official reports, though, she'd been dead when I had gotten home.

Then I went about my morning like nothing was wrong, figuring she was already gone. It wasn't until I was about to walk out the door that I saw her purse still on the table there.

There was no reason to panic. It was entirely possible that she wasn't feeling great. She sometimes got crippling migraines that would make her ask for her shift to be pushed back. Or someone could have called and begged to take her shift because they had a pressing bill that needed to be paid.

"But I knew."

My stomach plummeted as I flew through the living room, knocking over a chair in the process, screaming for her.

"She was cold," I admitted, feeling all that food in my stomach wobble around ominously at the memory.

Everything after that was a blur.

I hadn't called the police. But someone did. The female officer who showed up had pulled my sobbing body off of my mother, checking for a pulse even though it was clear as day that she had been long passed.

The coroner came.

I was given instructions that I don't even remember actually hearing. The officer was good enough to write it all down for me for when the shock wore off.

"Then it was all the arrangements," I went on. "I forgot all about Thomas."

Until he showed up at my door.

"I shouldn't have let him in."

To that, Cam's left hand grabbed my wrist, giving it a squeeze as he wrote with his right.You can't blame yourself for what he did.That was true enough. It had taken me years to come to grips with that reality.

But I had let him in.

I let him in.

I let him hold me while I cried. I let him wipe away the tears. I let him snuggle me on the couch. I'd fallen asleep on his shoulder.

I woke up to him trying to lay me back, trying to move over me, lips on my neck, hands roving.

"He didn't want to take no for an answer," I said, feeling Cam's hand give me another reassuring squeeze. My gaze went up, seeing raw pain in his eyes. "No," I insisted, shaking my head. "No. It didn't get that far."Far enough.That was fair.

Any touch without explicit consent was too far.

But I woke up.

I fought.

I was lucky in that he was somewhat thin and I was somewhat strong for someone so small. I got him off. I got away.

He'd ranted about leading him on, about playing with his emotions.

I - in a rare moment of rage likely caused by the chaos of my emotions following my mother's sudden death - screamed at him to get out, to leave me alone.

He had left. Likely only because I had blabbered on about how the neighbors heard me screaming about my mom, and likely thinking they might call the cops on him as well.

After that, though, when I ran into him, he made sure I couldn't get away. At work, he requested my tables. He cornered me in the grocery store. He grabbed me at the park.

Finally, it had gotten so scary to me that I had broken my lease, packed up just what I could carry when I was sure he was not around, and moved apartments. Not even far, just far enough that I figured he wouldn't find me.

But he did.

"I came home from work to him in my apartment."

He had a candlelight dinner all ready, fresh flowers.

"I know we had a fight. But I think it is time we make up."

Maybe I wouldn't have been so scared. If not for the rope I had caught sight of on the kitchen counter.

"I didn't own rope," I told Cam.

I ran.

I ran and hid in my car parked down the block until I saw him leave. Until I was sure he wasn't coming back. Then I went into my apartment, grabbed what I could carry in one trip, turned around, got in my car, and never looked back.

"I went to California first. That's what you do. You go as far as you can."But he found you.He did.

He found me.

And he kept finding me.

And each time he found me, there was a red flag.

"Only this time, I was aware of them. Sometimes, I caught the outline of handcuffs. Chains. That stuff rock climbers have. You know that special rope? People wear it as bracelets sometimes in case of emergencies. But he had too much of it looped around his wrist. More than enough to bound me."