Page 53 of Mastered By Lust

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Gage

My phone rings in the middle of the night. I snatch it up and silence it before it can wake Leah. She’s been sleeping with me more often than not, even though she grumbles about my “Eternal Darkness of the Soul” bedroom.

I’ve started cracking open the curtains after I wake up and dress in the mornings. It feels strange to let the outside world into my most private room, but I’m trying.

I hope she can see that I’m trying, because I’m doing it all for her.

I bite back a groan when I see the name on my screen. I slide out of bed. Once I’m in the hall, I answer. “Claudia, what is it?”

“Gagey?” She starts to say something else, but her sobs cut it off. She’s crying.

I pinch the bridge of my nose between my fingers. I’m worried about her, yet frustrated. I want her to be healthy and safe, but I can’t force her to make the right choices. “What’s going on, Claudia? Are you safe?”

“I—I don’t think so.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at home. But someone was watching me, and I thought I imagined it and—” She continues talking, but she’s speaking so fast and her words are so slurred, I can’t understand.

“Claudia?”

“Took some pills because I was seeing things and I don’t know…” Her words fade and become muffled. It sounds like the phone fell into blankets.

“Claudia?”

Now she isn’t speaking at all. My heart thuds with panic. I should be there for her. Why did I move to San Esteban? I’m her only support, the only friend who actually cares abouther. Yet I left her in Los Angeles.

“Claudia, answer me. Right now.”

Still no response.

A soft hand touches my shoulder, and I jump. Whirling around, I find Leah standing in my bedroom doorway, wearing one of my T-shirts.

I tug her close to me, soaking in her comfort.

“Claudia, if you don’t answer me right this second, I’m calling an ambulance for you.”

Leah stiffens against me, pulling back to look up at me with alarm.

There’s no word, no voice at all on the other end of the line. I start to hang up, but Leah says, “No, stay with her. I’ll get my phone.”

I follow her into the bedroom and use her phone to dial 9-1-1. I explain the emergency to the operator, and they inform me that an ambulance is heading to Claudia’s house.

I end the call with the emergency operator. There’s nothing else for me to do. Except?—

“I know you have to go to her,” Leah says quietly. “Would you like me to come, too?”

I brush a kiss on the top of her head. “You have work. I don’t know what shape Claudia will be in. She could be completely fine and I’ll have driven down there for no reason at all.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. But thank you.” I put on some clothes. When I check my phone for Claudia’s call, it’s disconnected. Did Claudia end the call? Someone else? It seems too early for the ambulance to have arrived and gotten into her house.

I pray she’s the one who ended the call. I pray she’s okay.

Until now, I haven’t prayed since I was a child. I threw my wish for a leading role at any and every deity I could conceive. I got my wish, but it came with strings.

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