Page 35 of Keep Breathing

CHAPTER 13

ALEKS

“Kurwa mac!” I cursed in Polish as I slammed my laptop closed. I had a ton of work to do, but I couldn’t focus on it. I was too worried about Evie. She had gotten back from shopping with Harris and Kailan about an hour ago, and she had looked exhausted and wrung out. She was so thin and fragile looking to start with, then Kailan said she’d had a panic attack in the store. It was hard not to worry about her. I figured she brought out the protective instincts of anyone with a heart. It was those big eyes. They looked so innocent. They pulled me closer and gave me this driving need to keep her safe.

It wasn’t just me either. I had seen the way the others looked at her. Watched her. We had known her for less than a day and she had pulled us all in. It was her strength too. She tried so hard to be strong, and to reassure us she was alright when she so obviously wasn’t. We recognized ourselves in her and I guess that made us want to protect her the way we were unable to protect ourselves. We saw that need to fight; to survive, that we had all been through, in her.

“Is she alright?” Kailan asked, pulling me from my thoughts. I looked up and found Harris walking into the kitchen. He looked exhausted and stressed, and I knew it couldn’t be easy for him – seeing a woman he cared for so much, going through such pain and fear. I barely knew her, and it was killing me.

“She’s sleeping. She was exhausted by the time she stopped yelling at me for buying so much from the store,” he laughed.

“Shouldn’t you stay with her? What if she has a nightmare again?” I asked with concern. In all of my time overseas I had never seen terror like I had seen in Evie’s face, when she woke screaming, the day before. I would hear her shrill, tortured screams for the rest of my life.

“I stayed with her until she dropped off. I’m hoping it will help to keep the nightmares at bay,” he explained.

“What happened at the store? A panic attack?” I asked.

“I think so. She said loud noises aren’t good. The alarm triggered her. She was curled up with her hands over her ears when I went in. I tried to talk to her, but it was like she was gone. I touched her and she freaked out,” he explained.

“We need to be more careful where we take her, and we need to keep things quiet around here,” Kailan said, and we both nodded.

“She…she was in her underwear when I went in and I…I saw her scars,” Harris went on, each word seeming to pain him.

“Scars?”

“She has a lot. They weren’t there before. It has to be what that fucker did to her,” Harris growled.

“What kind of scars?” I asked, swallowing the huge lump forming in my throat. I had to fight the urge to brush my hand over my own scars down my right side.

“The kind that we all have. The kind that come from weeks of torture. Cuts and burns, and that’s just what I saw.”

“Fuck. She said he hurt her,” Kailan reminded us.

“He tortured her…to make her break. He wanted her to give in and beg for death, just like she said,” I reasoned as it all made sense in my head.

“It’s little wonder she has PTSD. Who wouldn’t?” Kailan came to the table and flopped down heavily into the chair opposite me, Harris taking the seat at my side.

“Nick’s going to want to question her soon. He has to think about the other victims and getting this psycho off of the streets,” I pointed out.

“I know, but we have to think about Evie too. We don’t even know the half of what she went through. She’s fragile right now and I refuse to push her past what she can handle.” Harris was mad as he spoke and I got it, but I also got where Nick was coming from. He was a cop, and he had a duty to uphold. “Did you get anywhere with her calling her family?”

“I hacked into the security company – Shepard Security – and it wasn’t difficult, which is worrying. They have a firewall, but it’s weak. If this guy really does know what he’s doing with a computer, then he’s likely hacked them too,” I explained. I was still shocked a security company with such a good reputation had so little cyber security on the computers in their offices. Once we contacted Evie’s’ brothers, I would be warning them and advising them to step it up.

“So calling there is a no go?” Harris pushed.

“Maybe not. I can cover us from this end, make sure any call we make is untraceable back to us, but I’m worried this fucker could already be in their system, and if he is, he could hear every word said on the call.”

“Evie won’t risk that. What are our other options?”

“I think we go old school. Get a burner and post it to the office with another burner number. Have them call us that way. It’s untraceable,” I shrugged. “It’s not like this killer can check every piece of mail sent to the office.”

“That could work if we tell them to be out of the office when they call, just in case he has the place bugged,” Harris agreed.

“You think he really went to those kinds of lengths? Why would he let her go if it was going to cause this much trouble for him?” Kailan asked, and it was a very good question. All of this time watching Evie had to be taking from his time with his next victims. It just didn’t make sense.

“Maybe he’s enjoying watching her. Who knows with this sick sonofabitch? He must have had a close watch on her to know she sent that text from the library though, so we can’t take any risks. I know we can protect Evie, but I’m worried about him going after her family. She has small nieces and nephews.”

“We’ll keep them safe,” I assured him. I was going to make damned sure we didn’t do anything to put any of them at risk. I refused to allow anything else to hurt that poor woman who had been through hell. She deserved some peace.

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