“Oh my god, you’re going to kidnap her,” Fallon shrieks. “Y-you can’t! She’s just a kid. I’m not… I’m not letting that happen—”
“What are you talking about?”
“Y-you… you…” She looks like she is struggling to breathe, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Is she having a fucking panic attack? I need to diffuse the situation before it explodes in my face.
“Calm down, I’m not kidnapping anyone,” I tell her, but it’s like the words don’t reach her at all. Her chest is heaving, her eyes are wild, and I’m pretty sure she is hyperventilating. Shit.
Grabbing her shoulders, I turn her to face me. “Look at me. You need to snap out of it.” Her eyes are so wide they are almost round. Her breathing is rapid and shallow, but her eyes slowly focus on me again. “Take deep breaths.”
I start to show her how to do it. Sucking air in through my nose and exhaling through my mouth. She copies me, matching each breath until her breathing returns to normal.
“There you go, just keep breathing like that. No reason to freak out.”
“I thought… I thought you were going to kidnap her,” she admits.
“I gathered that much.” I let go of her shoulders and twist away from her, so I’m looking out of the windshield. “I might be a monster, but even I have limits. I won’t touch a kid, and I’ll kill anyone who does.”
“Then, why are we here? Who is the girl?”
“That I don’t know yet,” I say through clenched teeth, irritated by the way she doesn’t believe me and angry by Lucca sending me here in the first place.
As I pull out of the neighborhood, I keep glancing at Fallon, who is looking out of the window in silence. At least she is not freaking out anymore. It’s not until we are back on the highway that I see her head loll to the side.
“Hey,” I shake her arm, “no sleeping.”
“I know, I know. I’m trying.”
“Tell me about your family,” I urge. I know this is a terrible idea, but I’ve got to keep her awake.
“Um, my mom and dad own a little store in the town I grew up in. I worked there before I went to college.”
“You liked working there?” I ask, surprising myself by how genuinely interested I am in the answer.
“I guess.” She shrugs. “It was fine. My sister always hated it.” I don’t miss the way her voice takes on a sad note.
“Why did your sister hate it?”
“She thought it was boring, maybe even a little beneath her,” Fallon says, a smile on her face like she is laughing about some inside joke. “She was always the wild child. Adventurous, never sitting still, and always up for anything. She left as soon as she turned eighteen.”
“Where did she go?”
“Europe. She went to France to study but dropped out and moved in with her boyfriend she met there. I don’t think she was ever planning on coming back. I haven’t seen her in a long time. I miss her…” She looks out into the distance. I get the feeling that there is something more about her sister that she isn’t telling me, probably a falling out with the parents given the situation.
“I’m sure you’ll see her again soon,” I say without even thinking about the meaning of those words. Shit. I should have kept my mouth shut because she won’t see her sister soon; she might not see her sister again at all.
Not if I have my way, which has always been the plan.17FallonThree days pass in a blur, and we slowly fall into a weirdly normal routine. The tether of trust between us seems to grow. I’m pretty sure it has everything to do with the other night. Ever since he talked me off the edge of a panic attack, and we just talked like humans, things have been different, better.
I saw something in him that day in the car. It was like for the first time, he allowed a small sliver of who he was to shine through all the broken, dark pieces of who he made himself out to be. After that day, it made maintaining the hate I had for him hard.
I’ve never been the type to hold onto negativity, but it is hard not to hate him with the way he treats me sometimes. I often wonder if this is all a front, if Markus said and did things to keep me in place. Part of me stupidly thinks he would never hurt me, mainly because every threat he has made has been an idle one.
He’s all over the place, some days hot and other days cold, which is frustrating as hell. I can’t gauge his mood because I never know which way it’s going to go.
Every night we have sex, and of course, he makes sure I climax.