Page 35 of Reclaiming Adelaide

“There are consequences to your actions in the real world, Adelaide. This isn’t a game. There are no reset buttons.” He pulled onto the freeway after a semi carrying a trailer full of logs passed by. “You don’t respawn, and your stupidity affects the people around you.”

“I know that.”

“Then act like it.” He flipped the music back on.

“I’m trying. Okay. I am.”

He kept his gaze toward the bleak highway, his torso leaning forward as if waiting for me to try again.

I sniffled and wiped the tears off my cheeks.

I’d ruined everything, andheruined my escape. The longer I stuck around, the worse things became, and the harder it was to face the fact that life would never be the same.

My vision shifted, and the glare of oncoming traffic smeared across my sight. I choked. Pressing my hand to my heavy chest, I worked my shoulders up and down like a manual pump, expecting it to draw oxygen into my lungs.

“Jake,” I wheezed. “I can’t breathe.”

“Put your head between your knees.”

“Is that your solution for everything?” I snapped, pulling in the air like a leaking window whistling in a storm. “It won’t help.”

Jake grabbed the back of my head and shoved me to my knees. “Stay there.”

I wrapped my hands around his, threaded through my hair, and closed my eyes, soaking in his warmth. For just a moment, he rubbed his thumb against the dip between my skull and my neck in a soothing motion until he ripped his hand away, leaving me empty again.

The pounding in my chest subsided as I raised my head and leaned against the side of the car. My lids bobbed up and down as exhaustion sunk its meaty claws into my conscience and loosened my tense muscles. The soft sway of the car along the smooth road rocked my body into unconsciousness.

The car rolled to a stop, and I jerked up, my hands lashing out in front of me with a gasp.

“Where are we?” I asked as Jake punched in a code that opened a big black iron gate before us.

“Some place safe.”

“Safe forwho?”

He drove through at a snail’s pace, the jitters inside my stomach sparking with each passing moment until he parked next to a truck and turned it off.

“Get out.”

Jake exited the car and walked around to my side, but I hit the lock button, sealing myself inside.

It’s not like the place he’d taken me to looked like a prison. In fact, it was a beautiful, modern home. But he never answered my simple question, and that caused the distrust to erupt like a volcano.

I wasn’t getting out of this vehicle. Not willingly.

He slapped a hand against the tinted window, and I jumped. “What is with you women locking me out of my own car?”

How many women had done that? What gave them a reason to fear him?

Jake hit the button on the fob, unlocking the door, but I quickly locked it again.

A guttural blast of irritation had him clenching his hand into a solid fist when he moved to the back door and wrapped his hand around the handle.

Jake pressed the fob and jerked on the door. It opened with ease, almost as if he’d choreographed the move. He climbed on his hands and knees inside the backseat and reached for me. I lurched forward, avoiding his touch, and tumbled out of the car door, scrambling across the grass to the pool.

A man in jeans and a naked chest with a ghastly demon tattooed down his sternum stepped out from the pool house, wiping his hands on a red and white cloth. Or was it a white cloth with red on it?

I screamed and slid onto my hands as I changed course and headed for the towering cemented fence—three feet too high for me to jump over.

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