Chapter 29

Wednesday

I moved my hand away as soon as Eli reached for it.

He sighed. "Sadie, we're supposed to be in a relationship. That means holding hands after class."

"Relationships mean different things to everyone. And if anyone asks, we're taking it slow." I pushed the door open and took a huge breath of autumn air. I had already agreed to go on the double date with him. There was no reason why I had to hold his hand. What if Miles walked by? I didn't want to hurt him.

I tried to focus on the fact that the air seemed crisp. There were even a few leaves crunching under my feet.

"Is the idea of being with me really so repulsive?" Eli said with a light laugh.

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Even though he had laughed, he looked hurt. "I didn't say that."

"Do you want me to walk you to your dorm or back to V's?"

"Neither." I didn't want to run into Miles at my dorm. And I didn't want to be alone with V right now either.

"So what do you want to do?"

"I want to figure out where Julie is."

"If you want to do surveillance we have to head back to V's." His voice had changed when he said it. Almost like he loathed the idea of needing to go there.

I shook my head. "Don't you have some equipment we can use?"

"It's not as good." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "The local government doesn't rob people to fund high tech secret lairs."

"Right, they just use taxes for that."

He laughed.

And for a moment everything between us seemed normal. "I don't need fancy equipment anyway. I know that none of you believe me. But I can feel him." I stopped and sat down on a bench on the outskirts of campus.

Eli sat down next to me. "I believe that you can feel when something is wrong. But that doesn't mean he's here."

I closed my eyes. "He's here. And if I can feel that, I should be able to figure out where he is. Right?"

"So, you want to sit here and try to feel his presence?"

I laughed and opened my eyes. "You think I'm a lunatic."

"I think that maybe you haven't been getting enough sleep. But I don't think you're crazy. I get the idea that you can feel that something is amiss. I feel it. Everyone in this city feels it." He nodded to a lady across the street. There was a man walking behind her who looked innocent enough. Regardless, the woman had grabbed her purse with both hands and had quickened her pace.

"Even if he isn't here, he left that feeling behind," Eli said. "People are scared."

I looked down at my hands. I had brought that fear here. But I was going to do everything in my power to get rid of it. "I don't want V to know what I'm planning to do."

Eli didn't say a word.

"Please don't tell him," I said and looked up into Eli's eyes.

"If you're worried about him being part of your conspiracy to commit murder, it doesn't matter. He already has enough on his rap sheet to put him away for life at this point. Another murder won't make a difference."

"No, it's not that." The thought of V sitting in jail made my chest ache. Could he really be sent away for life? The only reason he had killed someone was to protect me. To save me. "I'm afraid he's going to try to stop me."

Eli leaned back on the bench. "I'm still hoping you'll change your mind."

"I won't ever change my mind about this."

"I get that he robbed you of a normal childhood. But you're still breathing, Sadie. Your heart is still beating. You're strong enough to bury all that pain. You can still move on."

I shook my head. "You saw the reports Liza wrote up about me. You know I can't have a normal life."

"You mean because you can't have children? We can just adopt."

I laughed. "We?"

"Seriously, Summer," he said, lowering his voice so no passersby could hear. "We can get a kid that needs a home. Like you needed a home."

I quickly wiped my tears away that I had unknowingly started to shed. "Maybe."

He smiled. "I'm pretty sure you just admitted you'd like to start a family with me."

"I didn't say that," I said with a laugh.

"It's been a long time since I've seen you smile." He wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

I didn't flinch from his touch. It actually felt comforting. And it was nice to know that someone was still capable of liking me after knowing the truth. Well, part of it. No one knew I had lost a baby. And I wasn't planning on telling anyone that. The truth was, I didn't blame Don entirely for what happened. I blamed myself for not being strong enough. And if I ever said that out loud, I was afraid that my pain would swallow me whole.

"Your future isn't over." He lightly kissed my temple. "It's only just beginning. I just want you to think about it, okay?"

"You're asking a lot of me today." I rested my head on his shoulder.

His arm relaxed around my shoulders, but he didn't say anything. We just sat there, staring at the passing traffic. And for a few moments, I felt normal, like maybe I did have a future. I felt like a college student. I felt like my fake boyfriend was real. My imagination blurred with reality and for just a second, I thought I saw my mom across the street.

I lifted my head. Her red hair. Her blue eyes. The only thing missing was her kind smile. She looked sad, like everything she ever loved had been taken from her. It was as if she missed me as much as I missed her.

"Mom?" I said her name as a whisper. And I realized that it had been ten years since I had spoken that word out loud. It sounded strange in my throat.

"Stay here," Eli said. He stood up and starting sprinting across the street.

The woman looked at Eli and then back to me. Car tires squealed and cars honked as Eli tried to make his way across the street. She held up two fingers before climbing into a waiting taxi cab. The car sped off just as Eli reached the other side of the street.

It was her. It had to be her. I slowly stood up. My mom was alive. How was that possible?

Eli ran back over to me. "Damn it, I almost had her."

"Was that my mom?"

"What?"

"Eli, is my mom alive?"

He put his hands on my shoulders. "V didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?" It felt like my heart was going to explode.

"There was a small hair follicle on a page in the book. We were able to get a DNA sample of Sadie Davis. The similarities aren't a coincidence. She is related to you."

"My...mom..."

"No, Summer. She's not your mom."

With each word he spoke it felt like he had stabbed a knife in my heart and was slowly twisting it.

I shook my head. "I don't have any family left, though."

"Apparently you do."

"That's not possible." For a few seconds I thought my mother was alive. It almost felt like she was being taken away from me again.

"Liza is looking into it."

"But she looked just like my mom. She looks like me."

"We think that your mom probably had a sister. We don't know for sure."

"She didn't. She would have told me. My grandmother would have told me. There would have been pictures or other proof. She didn't have a sister. It's my mom. Sadie Davis is my mom!"

"Summer, it's not your mom." He said it sternly, like he was trying to shake me out of my hallucination. "Don's just trying to get into your head. He's trying to rattle you. She dyed her hair and is wearing colored contacts to get under your skin. You've seen the real her. She's not your mother," he repeated.

"What if you're wrong? What if it's her? What if she's in trouble?"

"That woman is not on our side."

"But..."

"She's counting down the days to your death!"

His words seemed to ring in my ears. Death. Death. Death.

"I thought you all agreed that I wasn't going to die?" I asked. "We've been acting like we're putting together a puzzle, not trying to save my life."

"Sheltering you from the truth isn't helping anyone. Two days, Summer. We have two days to put the pieces together."

I swallowed hard. "You think she's going to kill me? Even if she is related to me?"

"I think she's damn well going to try."

 

***

 

I stared down at the last page of the file. As soon as I had read the information about Julie I had freaked out. I hadn't even realized there was another page.

But it didn't make any sense. My mother didn't have a sister. I never once heard of an aunt. And wouldn't my grandmother have talked about her? It was possible that she had a falling out with my family. I tapped my fingers against the glass table.

My grandmother was devastated after my mother died. If she had another kid, wouldn't she have reached out to her even if they were estranged? None of this made any sense. My fingers were making smudge marks on the glass. I quickly wiped them away with the hem of my shirt.

The whirring noise of the window opening made me turn my head.

I slammed the folder shut as V stepped inside. "We need to train," I said.

"Why aren't you in class?" he asked.

I stood up and walked over to him. "You need to teach me how to fight. I only have two days left."

"Sadie Davis is a trained sniper. You can't train for something you can't see."

I swallowed hard. "What...so there's no point?"

"We're going to figure out how to play up the new angle."

"I saw her today. She dyed her hair red and put in blue contacts. She looks just like my mom."

"And now you want to learn how to fight her? That's probably the opposite of what they wanted."

I had all afternoon to think about Sadie Davis. I didn't give a shit that she was related to me. For nine years I had desperately needed a home. And she had ignored my existence. She definitely wasn't my family. I had no family. "That woman is not related to me."

"She shared a large number of genes..."

"Blood has nothing to do with it. She's not on our side. She's on his."

He walked over to me, his eyes scanning my body. "You're not ready, Sadie."

"Of course I'm ready. I need to know how to protect myself. Teach me how to shoot a gun."

"I'm not going to hand a gun to someone who isn't stable." His words were cold.

"Stable? Are you shitting me?"

"You just found out you have a blood relative and you want to learn how to use a gun. You should be trying to figure out a way to talk to her, not practicing to kill her."

"I need to kill her before she kills me."

"That's not true. I told you I'd keep you safe."

"And Eli said you were all lying to me! She's not counting down to some crazy event. She's counting down to my death." I poked him in the center of the chest. "Just like I said." I poked him again. "And you want me to trust you when all you do is lie through your teeth."

He grabbed my hand before I could poke him again and pulled me against his chest.

"You're the unstable one, not me," I said. I was so pissed at him. All I wanted to do was slap the smug look off of his face.

"I'm a reflection of you. And if you don't like it, why do you keep coming back to me?"

"I'm not coming back to you." I pushed him off of me. My chest rose and fell in angry bursts.

"Take off your clothes," his voice rumbled.

"What? I'm not having sex with you. You're out of your mind." Fuck, why do I want to have sex with him right now?

"Take them off."

I swallowed hard. "Take them off yourself."

We both stepped forward at the same time and his lips collided with mine. And for the first time all day it felt like I could breathe. I grabbed his strong shoulders as he lifted me up and set me down on the edge of the glass table.

I didn't care that we were going to leave smudges on the glass.

I didn't care that I couldn't see him.

I didn't care that I didn't know his real name.

All that mattered was that we were both broken. And somehow doing this made us feel whole for a moment in time. A moment of borrowed time. I was just as unstable as he claimed. And he was right about himself. I saw that reflected in him.

I hitched my legs around his waist and pulled him closer as he tore off my shirt and bra.

"Tell me you don't want this," he groaned into my mouth as his hands found my breasts.

I didn't say a word.

"Tell me you think I'm a disaster." He unbuttoned my jeans.

I just kissed him back.

"Tell me I'm unstable."

God, fuck me already. I pressed my palms down on the table so I could lean into him.

His fingers slid down my sides, stopping at my waist as he pulled me off the table. He turned me around and pressed my naked torso against the cold glass.

"Tell me to stop." He pushed my jeans down my thighs, his hands lingering on my ass.

I moved my legs farther apart.

He grabbed my waist. "Fuck," he groaned as he thrust into me from behind.

The force pushed me forward, making my hipbones dig into the side of the table. That's all it took for me to forget that I was mad at him. I pressed my hands against the glass, moving to match his thrusts. It felt amazing. But I hated that I didn't know if I liked it, or if I just didn't know what it was like to experience pleasure without pain.

"Harder," I moaned.

His fingertips dug into my hips. All I could feel was the sensation of his cock rubbing against all of my walls.

"God, V!" I felt myself clenching around him. I didn't care that it was twisted. It felt so fucking right.

He continued to slide his cock in and out of me, riding out my orgasm. As soon as I had come down from my high, he pulled out of me.

I knew he hadn't cum yet. I hadn't felt him. "V?" I panted.

He grabbed my hips and flipped me over so that my back was pressed against the table. He was pumping his hand up and down his length as he stared down at me with a heated gaze. This was his way of proving he was in control of this situation. Of his mind. Of everything I was scared of.

He put his knee against my shin, separating my legs, and stepped between my thighs. His hand slowed for a second and the first stream of hot liquid landed on the center of my chest. Then my stomach. And my chest again. He milked his cock until every last drop was splattered against my flesh.

He pulled his sweatpants back up as he stared down at me. And then he walked away.

"V?"

He continued to walk away.

I pushed myself up until I was resting on my elbows. "Don't leave me like this!" I tried to grab my shirt with my toes without spilling his semen all over the table.

He reappeared just as I made contact with my shirt. He was carrying a towel. I let my leg relax. I just stared at him as he slowly wiped his cum off of my breasts. If this was his proof that he could take care of me, it wasn't quite enough.

"Can I learn how to use a gun now?" I asked.

A small smile spread across his lips. "No." He ran the towel down my stomach.

"You said you were a reflection of me. So if I'm crazy, so are you."

"And I don't use a gun." He nodded over to where his bow was hanging on the side of the target.

"You're going to teach me to use that?"

He laughed. "No."

"V!"

"You don't need to learn how to use anything. Let me protect you."

"I don't want you to protect me. I want to be able to take care of myself."

He wiped the cloth against my stomach once more and then set it down on the side of the table. He leaned forward, placing his hands on the table on either side of me. "Then I'll teach you in two days."

I slid off the table, very aware of the fact that my ass cheeks probably left a mark as they squeaked against the glass. But he didn't move. He kept his hands on the table, caging me in.

"Two days is two days too late," I said.

"After you learn to trust me, I'll teach you how to protect yourself."

"You're asking me to trust you with my life."

"I think you just found that my hands are very capable of taking care of you."

I scowled at him.

"Get dressed. We can start by getting you in better shape."

I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped. "Did you just call me fat?"

He laughed and stepped back, allowing me to pass. "Run faster. Jump higher. That kind of thing."

"Mhm." I snatched my clothes off the ground.

"I didn't say anything about losing weight!" he called after me as I retreated into the bedroom to find some workout clothes.