In hindsight, he could have handled things a lot better than he did but he also didn’t really blame himself for the way he acted and he knew, deep down, Hannah probably didn’t either, though at the time it seemed like she wanted nothing more than to leave him never look back.
After he found the cameras, he called her and told her to come home. She said she was in the middle of class and couldn’t leave, she’d barely been able to take his call in the hallways without the professor glaring at her. He told her he didn’t care, she needed to come home now. Though, to be fair, he wasn’t sure that home was all that much safer for her, all things considered. After all, there were cameras and microphones planted around the house. It’s possible she was safer in an environment surrounded by other people, witnesses.
But no. She was safest with him. That much was entirely clear. She needed to be by his side where he could see her, keep an eye on her. He could keep her and their baby safe so long as he could see them both. It was the only way he could maintain control over all of this. He needed to see it, to touch it, to be able to know she was within earshot constantly.
As he paced around the house, waiting for her to get him, he knew he was going more than a little bit insane. Part of him wanted to call her and take it back, tell her that she could go about her day, that he regretted the paranoia and he was sorry. But no. They’d come this far. Besides, she was already mad at him. Taking it all back and telling her that he got over his momentary bout of fear was not going to make her any happier. So he just paced around and waited for her to get home.
“I’m here,” she said, dropping her bag in the living room when she arrived home. “Just like you wanted.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” he said. “Things are just a little crazy right now. I promise I’ll be normal tomorrow, I just didn’t get a lot of sleep, that’s all.”
She sighed. She was agitated. He couldn’t blame her. She was pregnant and stressed and he wasn’t making it easy on her. But she let her glare go, her brows softened and the creases there disappeared as her face turned into nothing more than a tired look. She nodded and bit her lip and said it was okay, that she understood, that they’d get through it. He didn’t think he deserved her at all. In fact he knew he didn’t. But that wasn’t going to stop him from trying to protect her and their child at all costs.
***
After he found another pair of footprints in the woods leading to their boathouse, he called Hannah again. This was days later. He’d calmed down a bit and had gotten himself down to only a few texts a day and one call in the morning. But he broke that standard when he saw the footprints. He called her home once again and this time she was not nearly as forgiving or as understanding as before. Nor was she going to back down for his puppy pleas about trying to protect her.
“You need to get off my back, Chance,” she said sharply. “That’s two classes you’ve made me miss.”
“Well maybe you should just take the rest of the semester off,” he said and watched her face contort, knowing he immediately said the wrong thing.
“I just got back into school after narrowly avoiding being fucking kidnapped and you want me to quit? I just caught up on all my work and got my professors to allow me to reenroll and you want me to just drop out again?” she said, carefully, dangerously. He was going to hold his ground. He wasn’t going to let her frighten him, no matter how much she truly did frighten him.
“Look,” he said, standing up and putting his hands over top of hers where she immediately pulled them away. “I just want you to realize the gravity of this—”
“I do,” she spat. “I’m the one who got tossed around between bikers trying to keep my brother from being beat to death for a couple of thousand dollars. I’m the one the Black Death was after. I understand completely what’s going on here but what I don’t understand is why I’m now the one who, once again, has to make sacrifices. What about you, Chance? Why don’t we put you under house arrest and see how you like it?”
He felt his blood begin to boil. She had a way of making him like that, making him agitated and angry and all sorts of frustrated. He was trying to protect her, trying to help her and she was throwing it all back in his face like he was the monster. He wasn’t the one who bugged their apartment or stalked her to the store. He wasn’t the one who had tried to take her on the back of his bike and sell her off to some prostitution slave ring against her will. He’d saved her before, but now that didn’t seem to matter at all as she started with venom back at him. Maybe it was the hormones from the pregnancy making her act crazy or maybe she was just that ungrateful for all he was trying to do. Either way, he wasn’t going to deal with it for any longer.
“Just don’t leave the house,” he ordered and turned to walk out the front door.
“Oh, but you can?” she asked, yelling after him. It was a good thing they didn’t really have any neighbors around here or someone might have called in some kind of domestic incident. Instead he got on his bike, lighting up the forest around them with the sounds of the motor. He kicked it into gear and peeled off down the street, not caring if Hannah was yelling at him on his way out or if it was just the sounds of the bike.