Breaking Out (The Surrender Trilogy 2)

She hit the main power button and held it, but nothing happened. “What the fuck?”

Parker faced her. “Not working?”

“No. I can’t even get it to turn on.”

“Those phones are temperamental. Maybe you need to get a new one.”

She continued to hit the button, but nothing happened. She opened the back of the phone and slid out the battery and popped it back in. Nothing. “Damn it!”

She tossed it angrily back in her bag. Great. A horrible thought crossed her mind. What if Lucian tried to reach her and couldn’t? Not that he would call her, but if he wanted to for some reason . . . The phone was under his name. She couldn’t get another one on the same account. It was stupid, but not having that phone felt like her last lifeline to him was severed. She wasn’t ready for that yet.

“Can we stop at a phone store?”

Parker glanced at her. His lips parted and he hesitated. “Why don’t you just wait a few days and see if it fixes itself? Maybe the charger wasn’t working.”

Maybe, but she’d feel better if someone who knew what they were doing checked it. “I’d rather just take it to a professional. It shouldn’t cost anything for someone to just look.”

His expression was placid as he nodded. Parker directed the driver to a phone store near their place. When they arrived, there was a young guy named Brett at the counter, who looked at the phone. He removed the back and frowned. “This phone’s gotten wet.”

“What? That’s impossible. I never keep it anywhere near water.”

He flipped open the back panel. “See this patch—how it’s red? That tells us if it’s been near water. That’s really red. It looks like this phone’s been submerged in water.”

“I didn’t get my phone wet,” she gritted. It had to be something else.

The clerk shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do. Once a phone’s been soaked like this, it’s junk.”

“But how can that be?”

“Sorry. If you give me your account number I can see what kind of plan you had. If it was insured I can get you a replacement so there isn’t an interruption in service.”

She didn’t know the account number. Frustration choked her. She felt completely cut off from Lucian.

With a shaky hand, she took the phone. “That’s okay. I’ll just take it anyway. Maybe it will start working again if it dries out.”

“Oh, it won’t work again. It’s dry. The damage is done.”

She knew that, she just couldn’t seem to accept it. Taking the phone, she dropped it into her bag. Her eyes prickled with tears.

“Do you want to get a new phone? Set up a new number?” Parker asked. He wouldn’t understand. Having a phone wasn’t the point. She wanted this phone, in case Lucian needed her.

Fuck! She didn’t even know his cell phone number. Everything was gone.

She shook her head. Her eyes frantically blinked. “That’s okay. Let’s just go home.”

Parker kept glancing at her as they walked home. “I’m sorry about your phone.”

She shrugged. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

They walked in silence back to the apartment, neither of them feeling much like talking.

Chapter 26

Dark Knight

Scout sat at the table, fingers curled around her useless phone, and stared at the surface. She was adrift, lost in a world she hated, floating along some destined path with no idea of where her fate intended to send her.

“Hey.”

At Parker’s soft word, she turned. He looked upset. Some odd emotion swirled in the depths of his green eyes. Was it regret? About inviting her here perhaps.

She gave a weak smile. Parker. He was an entirely different issue she needed to deal with. Everything had become so fragile. She wasn’t sure how to read him, how to interpret the casual gestures he’d been making, but she knew they needed to get back to normal or this delicate hold she had on herself might crumble and turn the little peace she had left into dust.

She was drained from overthinking everything. Sighing, she tried again for a smile and failed. “Hey.”

His gaze searched hers, and he hesitantly pulled out the other chair at the small table and sat across from her. “I think we should talk,” he quietly said.

Yeah, they probably should, but she was just so damn weary of everything. Life had never been this hard. The constant struggle to survive was nothing compared to this ongoing emotional battle to keep breathing, to keep seeing purpose and moving ahead. She could barely muster the attention she needed to form the proper facial expressions. How was she supposed to have a conversation about hypotheticals she might be imagining? The wrong words could make an awkward situation unbearable.

Her gaze connected with his and she waited. His hand slid across the surface of the table and curled around hers. She tried not to wince. More mixed signals. Maybe he was just trying to be supportive. The hand still holding her phone dropped to her lap, protecting the worthless device from others as though it were some sort of security blanket that could somehow protect her in return.