Page 40 of Escape

“I’m not leaving until I make myself clear,” I informed him. Grabbing his shirt by the neck, I lifted his torso slightly and seethed, “Listen here, pussy. Josie is dead to you. You don’t go looking for her. You don’t call her. If I even get so much as a whiff of you thinking about her, I will not hesitate to hunt you down and remind you that she’s off limits to you for the rest of your miserable life. Since it’s obvious you’re not very smart, I’m going to make this plain. Touch her again, and you’re dead.”

I released the hold I had on his shirt collar, and his body slumped back to the ground. Then I stood up straight, looked down at him, and asked, “Are we clear?”

“Yeah, man. Now get out.”

Stepping over him, I made my way to the front door. But just before I walked out, I remembered something. So, I turned around, went to the kitchen where I’d found Josie earlier, and snatched up her phone. My eyes caught sight of Josie’s purse. I picked that up, too.

Sure, there were likely other things here she wanted from the house, but it wasn’t worth spending another minute here. I’d get her whatever she needed.

And as I walked back to the front door and out of the house, I did it thinking that what Josie needed to get through this wasn’t simply going to be things that could be purchased at a store. She was going to have a long road ahead of her, but I intended to be there for her every step of the way.

Josie

Something squeezed my hand. It was brief, but I knew I hadn’t imagined it.

I opened my one eye that hadn’t been swollen shut and located my hand. That’s when I saw what had squeezed it.

There was another hand, Huck’s, to be precise, and it was still holding mine. He was still here with me. I didn’t know how long it had been—I felt unbelievably exhausted—but through all the pain I’d felt in my body, the knowledge that Huck hadn’t left me felt so good.

My eye lingered on his hand, and if I had the strength in my body, I would have frowned and attempted to wake him up. Because I didn’t like what I saw.

All his knuckles were red and swollen, and some had been cracked open and were bleeding. How had that happened to him? Why hadn’t he had them taken care of, especially considering it would have been easy to do while here in the hospital?

I wanted answers.

But the weight of my exhaustion was too much. I had no choice but to wait. Because a moment later, the fatigue took over and pulled me under.

It could have been an hour, a day, or a month. I had no concept of time. The only thing that led me to believe it hadn’t been a month was that when I woke again, I could still only open one eye. That had to mean I hadn’t been here that long just yet.

I received additional confirmation I wasn’t wrong when I glanced down at my left hand and saw Huck was still there, holding it with a firm but gentle grip.

When I woke this time, I was rewarded by the most strength I’d had since Kurt had attacked me and the sight of Huck staring at me. Just because I felt the best I had since it had all gone down did not mean I wasn’t still tired. I was. My eyelid was still unbelievably heavy. But I couldn’t ignore Huck.

Unable to stop myself, I asked, “What happened to your hands?”

Huck ignored my question, returning one of his own. “How do you feel, Josie?”

“Tired and achy all over.”

“So, sleep,” he urged me. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe.”

I closed my eye and sighed, feeling like a lead weight was leaving my body. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding on to so much tension. But once I had his confirmation that he wasn’t leaving me, that heaviness in my chest vanished.

“Am I going to live?”

There was an extended silence. And just as I was about to force my eye open again, Huck answered in a choked voice, “For a long time.”

My eyes were both still closed when I murmured, “But what happened to your hands?”

In a move I hadn’t been expecting, Huck used those injured hands to lift my left one from where he’d been holding tightly to it on the side of the bed. He kissed my knuckles twice before he said softly, “We’ll talk about that later. Just get some rest, honey.”

Warmth spread through me as I relished the feel of his lips on my skin and the sound of his voice calling me honey. It was so good, so nice, it was no wonder I’d drifted off once again, searching for beautiful dreams in what had become the nightmare of my life.

It was when I woke for the third time that I finally felt like I’d be able to stay that way for a bit. And I thought that was a good thing, because it was probably well past the time when I needed to learn the full extent of my injuries, apologize to Huck for having put him in the position that I did by not listening to him from the start, figure out how long I’d been here, and ask questions about what it was going to take for me to be able to leave.

Of course, that last part of the equation might require some planning, since Huck didn’t yet know just how deep this thing was going to go. I’d already pulled him into something I was certain he never would have wanted to sign up for.

Rolling my head to the side, I saw he was still sitting there in the same clothes he’d been in every other time I’d opened my eyes.