Page 116 of Lost in the Moonlight

Chapter Thirty-five

Willow

INSIDE YOUR HEAVEN

Performed by Carrie Underwood

Once Lincoln and I got home, we tucked ourselves into his study, closed the door on the security team, and lost ourselves in another heated kiss. It felt different than any of the ones before. It felt as if Lincoln was kissing me so he wouldn’t remember anything that had happened. As if he needed tofeelour hands and bodies seeking and soothing and loving so he wouldn’t feel anything else. And I gladly and willingly gave it to him because I didn’t want either of us to think about what could have happened. I didn’t want to remember the sound of the shot that had brought me straight back to Dad bleeding out on our living room floor.

We were alive. There should be no guilt in that. His or mine. We’d survived. We’d lived.

The relief I felt at knowing the man who’d done it had actually been caught bloomed large and strong. I didn’t care that he was hurt. Didn’t care that he might die. Perhaps I should havefelt bad about it, but I didn’t. If he died, it meant I wouldn’t have to live through another four years awaiting a trial.

I was tired of being on the receiving end of violence. Tired of waiting to see evil punished. And I was tired of dragging remorse around with me. Lincoln and I continuing to hold on to bags of self-blame wouldn’t honor anyone who’d lost their lives instead of us…because of us.

So, I let myself rejoice in Lincoln. In the touch of our mouths and hands and souls. In the three glorious words he’d uttered in the café kitchen that I hadn’t been able to repeat yet.

I’d just torn my mouth away from his, determined to say the words right then and there, when our phones started ringing—and they didn’t stop for hours.

We spent the afternoon fielding calls—from Axel, the Marshals, and our families. Hector told me not to come in the next day and then handed the phone to my mom. She said Hector had demanded she stay the night with him in a high-handed but sexy way, and it had ripped a laugh from me. But afterward, she’d gotten quiet and serious and asked if I was okay. I was surprised how honest I could be when I said I was. She told me she’d come by Lincoln’s in the morning. While I talked to Mom, Lincoln’s parents and sisters sent frantic messages that turned into long conversations I could tell were pure torment for someone who hated being on the phone.

But after the relief, the outpouring of love, and the adrenaline crash, a new concern started to flicker to life. This one was entirely about Lincoln because, as the afternoon turned into night, he kept sending scowls to the corners of the room, as if he was chasing away the boogieman. I didn’t understand why he wasn’t feeling as relieved as I was. I didn’t know what was causing his brows to remain furrowed and the air around him to remain broody.

This chapter was closed. It was behind us. Wasn’t it?

Was his reaction just the remnants of runaway endorphins? Aftershocks?

I’d started to tell him a dozen times that I loved him, needing to say the words as a comfort to us both, but every time he darted a glance to the corner of the room, it stopped me. Something was still eating at him. A shadow had surrounded him. One that seemed to be sucking him back into the black vortex I’d thought we’d escaped.

By the time we fell asleep with me tucked up against him, I thought maybe he’d started to come around, as his shoulders loosened and the furrow relaxed. But when I woke without his arms around me, I panicked, until the scratch of a pencil on paper drew my eyes to where he sat propped up against the headboard. He had a sketchpad in hand and a look of concentration on his face as his pencil moved over the page in the moonlight streaming in the window.

“How long have you been awake?” I asked. He looked up at me, hand freezing. Backlit as he was from the moon, it kept his eyes shadowed, hiding his thoughts from me.

“A while,” he said. “Did I wake you?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Once I’m awake, once I get an image in my head, my body can’t remain still,” he said apologetically. “Normally, I get up. But I didn’t want to leave you. I’ll try not to wake you if it happens again.”

I sat up, the sheet fell away, and Lincoln’s eyes fell to my naked chest.

I closed the little distance between us, took the sketchpad and pencil, and tossed them aside before saying, “I don’t care. Wake me up. Didn’t you just tell me yesterday that it simplymeans we have more minutes together? We have a lifetime together now. For as long as this body gives me…” I trailed off, instantly feeling bad I’d brought up the FFI and the mutated gene. But maybe this was what he was still worried about—now that the physical threat had been removed, it brought my internal one into full focus.

He ran a hand over my arm and up along my collarbone and then cupped my neck. Goosebumps erupted at his touch. The very best kind.

“About that,” he said.

I didn’t let him finish. A moment of alarm had me preventing him from saying what Chad had said. That he couldn’t take the leap. That knowing I might die early was just too much. So I kissed him, lips sliding over his, tongue seeking pleasure. And just like I’d hoped, the fire we never seemed to fully quench burst into an inferno, stalling all talk, all thought.

Until he pulled away, grabbed my chin, and stopped me from continuing my onslaught.

“Listen. My mother has contacts—or maybe it’s my dad and she’s using them, who knows. Regardless, she contacted a lab in California, and they can send one of their scientists here. To us. They can test you for the mutated gene.”

Shock rippled through me. “What?”

“I don’t care if you have it, Willow. I want every single moment with you, no matter what that looks like. So it wouldn’t matter to me if you were ever tested, but I don’t want you to live with the uncertainty. I don’t want it hanging over you.”

My stomach tensed, flight instincts rushing through me. Mom and I hadn’t officially told the Marshals we were leaving, even though I was positive it was where we’d landed. But the thought of being tested after years of hiding, years of being asquiet as possible, years of trying to blend in instead of standing out, only made the panic grow. It was mixed in with these new concerns I had for Lincoln and a larger concern that knowing the truth brought. Because if it came back that I had the mutated gene, Lincoln and I would have different decisions to make. A life to live or not live. A risk to take for both of us. Could I hurt him that way? Could he accept the burden of knowing I might die?

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