Page 14 of Saving Their Forever

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“What is it?” Ry asks when he opens the door to his top-floor unit and sees me and Charlie in the hall.

His gaze holds a sea of worry, and I’m suddenly second guessing myself. What if it was just a random guy on vacation? Or someone working with one of those language apps?

“How’s Wren?” She’s not in the main room, and I know for a fact Ry isn’t about to let her far out of his sight. Her due date was today.

“She’s lying down. She had a couple of dizzy spells this morning.” He runs a hand over his shaved head, his shoulders slumping. “She swears she’s fine. But I’d feel a hell of a lot better if she’d let me take her to the hospital.”

“What can I do?”

He studies me for a beat. “Tell me what has you spooked.”

Fuck. He was always the best of us at reading micro-expressions. A product of all those memory tricks he taught himself before we were captured. “It’s nothing.”

“We don’t lie to each other, Rip. When you first came home, I let you get away with the little ones. All those times you told me you were okay when you weren’t? But this…it’s in your eyes. This is bigger.”

I should have known he’d see right through me.

“So, spill it. Before I call Dax and tell him to get the fuck over here. Because right about now, he’s probably having a nice dinner with Evianna.”

Pixel trots into the room and drops one of her toys in front of Charlie. He glances up at me, and when I nod, grabs the stuffed bone and tosses it in the air for the little white puffball to catch.

“I heard someone speaking Pashto when I was walking Charlie this afternoon.”

Ry’s entire body tenses. “You’re sure?”

Am I? Three hours ago, I would have bet my life on it. But after insisting Cara leave the restaurant early, locking myself in our condo, and scouring the traffic cameras in the area for hours, I’m not so sure.

“I didn’t see the guy,” I admit. “But…”

“Rip, you might not trust yourself anymore but I do. What did he say?”

“How much longer do we need to wait?”

Ry wasn’t prepared for me to repeat the words in Pashto, and pain flashes through his multi-hued gaze.

“Sorry. I didn’t…fuck. I meant to speak English.” My eyes burn, and the lump in my throat makes it hard to breathe. Almost three years, and my broken mind still goes back there when I least expect it. Some days, I wake up expecting to see the bare, brown walls of the tiny room with the thin cot and the door that locked from the outside.

The scents of cardamom, coriander, and turmeric turn my stomach, and probably always will.

Charlie noses the hand balled into a fist at my side. Ry’s meaty palm clamps down on my shoulder. “Look at me,” he growls. “That’s an order.”

“I’m still…here,” I say quietly as I snap my gaze to his. “Mostly.”

He nods, and a muscle in his jaw flexes. “Seattle doesn’t have a large Afghan population. In nine years, I’ve never heard a single person speaking Pashto. Urdu, sure. Arabic. Hindi. But not Pashto. It’s too much of a coincidence after the guy following Wren the other day. If there’s even a possibility someone from our past found us—any of us—we don’t take chances. No one goes out alone until we figure this out. Got it? If Charlie needs to take a piss, you bring me or Graham with you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Wren

I stifle a yawn from my recliner, push my lap desk away, and reach for the green smoothie on the side table. With a frown, I sniff it and set the glass back down. “Promise me, Ry. After this baby comes out, no more green smoothies. Ever.”

He chuckles from the counter, where he’s studying a thirty-second video I pulled off a security camera late last night. “I make no such guarantees, little bird. They’re good for you.”

I roll my eyes. “They’re disgusting.”

“I’ll add more fruit. Less kale.” Pressing a kiss to the top of my head, he peers down at the laptop screen. “Nothing?”

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