“You’re Braxton Fawn, right?”
Only then did I realize I’d never responded.
“Who wants to know?”
She brought her thin arms around, showing me the bat she carried. I backed up a step, but it was too late.
“Emily,” she cheerily supplied. She barely finished speaking her name before she brought the bat up and swung.
The first thing I lost was my feet when the bat connected with my head. I hit the ground with a cry, and that was the last thing I heard when my hearing went next.
I could feel the first crack in my skull and my blood running down my forehead, though. She hit me again and my cheek connected with the concrete with a hard smack. I didn’t question how I could turn my head and see that her lips were still spread.
Emily’s smile never wavered.
It was also the last thing I saw when she took my vision with her third swing. The bat connected and I finally, mercifully, lost consciousness too.It sounded like fireworks or a car backfiring.
I almost went back to sleep with an annoyed exhale until I remembered we lived too deep in the woods. Whatever made that sound had been too loud and too close.
“What was that?” Houston asked. He’d woken up too.
“I don’t know,” I answered with a tired shake of my head. My eyes were still closed.
“Then how about you both go back to sleep before you wake Braxton?” Loren grumbled in my neck as he hugged me tighter from behind. I could feel his morning wood, but sex was the last thing on my mind.
If Loren was awake, that means he’d heard it too.
Houston and I weren’t imagining things.
My eyes drifted open for the first time to see if Braxton was awake and wondering the same thing.
The spot where she’d slept between Houston and me was empty.
“She’s not here,” I said more to myself than to them as my heart began to race.
Having noticed, too, Houston was already up, grabbing his phone, and heading for the door. “Get the fuck up,” he barked at us both.
I threw Loren’s arm from around my waist, got up, and snatched a pair of pants—I didn’t care whose—from the floor as I went. Loren was right behind me, though he’d settled for the sheet wrapped around his waist.
Houston was already coming out of the bathroom when we stepped into the hall. For the first time, I cursed the size of this house. There was no sound now to tell us where to look next, and there were too many options to choose from.
“Braxton!” I shouted when I couldn’t think clearly enough to figure out where she would go. Our exhaustion had made it too hard to sense before, but now we were all too painfully aware.
Something was wrong.
Why was Braxton even up this early?
As soon as my mind formed the question, I remembered.
Today was Houston’s birthday.
She’d wanted to bake a cake.
My limbs were getting heavier, too heavy, as we raced down the stairs. I was nothing more than a block of ice by the time we reached the ground floor. Or maybe I was trapped inside of one.
Maybe she hadn’t left yet.
We rushed into the kitchen to check there first and came to a dead halt. The last person we expected to see was sitting on the island, swinging her short legs while she waited.
“Baby!” she squealed when our eyes connected.
I closed mine a second later.
How the hell was she here?
We didn’t buy this place until long after she’d disappeared. Emily wouldn’t know where to find us, much less how to get inside the gates. She’d need the code or the device, which she had neither.
“What the fuck kind of fatal attraction, soap opera, Days of our Lives bullshit are you on?” Loren snapped. “I don’t even want to know how you found us or why you’re here. Just get the hell out.”
My eyes opened when I heard what sounded like Emily’s feet hitting the ground. She was thinner than I remembered, and where there had once been mischief in her eyes, there was now only malice.
“You chased me for years,” she pointed out while ignoring Loren. “Now that I’m here, you want me to go? Sorry, I don’t think so.”
“Where’s his kid?” Houston asked her. “Since you’re well aware that’s who he was looking for.”
Emily glowered at him before turning to me. “You’re still letting them speak for you, I see.”
“What do you want?” I demanded, speaking up for the first time. I still hadn’t recovered from seeing Emily and finding her in our house.
Where the hell was Braxton?
“I want to give us another chance,” she answered as she kept coming closer, “and I know you do too. I know you still love me.”
Loren snorted.
“It’s too late for that, Em. I—we—we’re divorced.”
“Why do you think she’s here?” Loren mused out loud. “She knows that already.” The asshole couldn’t mind his business for two goddamn minutes.