Page 24 of Falling Too Late

I couldn’t even register what it was, past the fear that it instilled in me.

“Wha-what was that?” I tried looking around him. He leaned over the edge of the yellowed, fiberglass bathtub.

“What was what?”

“That noise?”

“Noise?” He turned, looking behind him. “Hold on.” He got up, leaving the bathroom and coming back with a silver roll.

Seeing it already had me shrinking farther into the bathtub.

A roll of duct tape.

“Was it this?”

I nodded.

“Did. . .did they hurt you with this?”

Hesitantly, I nodded.

“. . .How?”

I couldn’t find the words, so I pushed up my sleeves and showed him. Halfway up my forearms, there was a discoloration in my skin from where they repeatedly put the tape and ripped itoff. They started to tape my arms behind my back after I had scratched them too many times.

Alex stared down at it in his hand. “I was putting it on the cracks in the window seals.”

My heart was still trying to escape my chest. Seeing the tape made me feel like it was tugging at my skin again. The way it felt when they ripped it off me.

Alex tossed it out of the room and reached his hand out to me. I took it and he helped me out of the tub.

He wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and pulled me to him.

Safe. I am safe with him.

CHAPTER 12

ALEX

Fives monthslater

I open the door to Wren lying on the bed with a few pillows behind her head, propped up with a blanket draped over her lap. She was wearing a pair of my gray sweatpants and one of my hoodies with the hood pulled up, reading one of the books we’d picked up from the library.

I smirked at the scene before me.?

“What?” She was looking at me over the top of the book. Wren had relaxed since the fire. She wasn’t as jumpy and had started to smile more. I knew I had done the right thing.

I would do anything to make her feel safe. Even if that meant killing anyone who hurt her.

“Nothing.” I crawled onto the twin bed next to her. Like we were in sync, she lifted her head, and I put my arm behind her. She moved her head so it was in the crook of my shoulder, and she brought the book up, continuing to read. The bed was too small for the both of us to sit without touching.I liked sitting on the bed with her. Liked that she let me put my arm behind her. Liked how her legs would tangle with mine.

With Kevin still in the hospital’s burn unit (information given to Ma by her nurse friend), Wren had been able to relax. Thenurse said it didn’t look like he was leaving anytime soon. Still heavily sedated and getting skin grafts. After the fire, the landlord had to move everyone out of that fourplex. We think he got the insurance money and rather than fixing it up, he just kept it. There was a shiny brand-new vehicle in the parking lot the other day, and it couldn’t have been anyone who actually lived in this dump.

Mentally, I was making plans on how to finish the job. I’d failed to kill him in the fire, but at least I hurt him enough to keep him hospitalized for a while. Kevin being gone had been everything for Wren.

It took her a while to get used to being here. Took her a while to stop jumping every time I said something or brushed up against her. She was easily spooked. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for my gentle touches to turn into hits.

This made me want to touch her more. Wanted to show her that I was the last person on this earth to lay hands on her. She was like a low-burning fire, and I just wanted to feel her warmth.

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