Page 5 of Chasing Forever

Blythe stepped in front of me. “Hey, don’t think like that. You can’t blame yourself. You did what you had to do.”

The knot in my throat grew bigger. “I knew I shouldn’t leave him behind. Iknewit. I should have tried harder to get him away from my brother. I should have taken him and run.”

“Don’t think like that. You can’t do that to yourself.”

“But if I had been here?—”

She shook her head and held up her hand, cutting me off. “If you had been here, there’s no telling the state you would be in. Those bruises...” She trailed off, momentarily squeezing her eyes closed and swallowing thickly. “Merritt, you were in such bad shape,” she started again, her voice much quieter. “There’s no telling what he would have done to you if you had stayed—how much worse it would have gotten. If you would have even...” Her voice broke. “If you would have survived the next time, or the time after that.”

Her eyes went glassy, the sight of her fighting back her own tears making my chin quiver that much worse. My throat ached as I tried to swallow, emotion clogging it. “You had to save yourself in order to make sure you were strong enough for something just like this,” she continued. “You had to heal so you could be what that little boy needs at this very moment.”

I pulled in a deep breath, searching for the calm I would need before I saw Levi. The painful truth was, I hadn’t been in a place to take care of Levi before. I couldn’t have taken him from one monster only to trap him with another.

And speaking of that particular monster, I hadn’t let myself think about what it meant to be back in the same town he was in. I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t scared, but there was a voice in the back of my head—one that hadn’t been there before—telling me I could do this. I was ready. I could be what Levi needed, and when it came to a potential confrontation with Warren, well, that was a bridge I would cross when I got there.

I pulled in a stuttered breath before steeling my spine and starting forward once more. The moment we crossed the threshold we were greeted by an older woman with kind eyes and a soft smile that instantly worked to ease some of my anxiety.

“Ms. Bell?”

“Yeah, hi.” I reached out and took her hand, giving it a shake. “Call me Merritt.”

Her gaze caught on Blythe, coming in right behind me, and I registered the surprise on her face a moment before her smile grew even wider.

“This is a nice surprise, sweetheart,” she said to Blythe as she came to a stop beside me. Her eyes bounced between the two of us. “Do you guys know each other?”

Blythe leaned in and gave the woman a quick peck on the cheek before looping her arm through mine in a show of solidarity. “Yeah. We’re friends.” She said it with such casual ease that something warm bloomed in my chest and spread out through my limbs.

“I’m glad you’re here then.” The woman turned her kind eyes back to me. “Merritt, I’m Tessa Dixon. I’m the director here at Hope House. If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to Levi. He’s playing board games with some of the other kids in the common room.”

My heart began to race as I followed Tessa through the large entry and down a long hallway to the left. My hands clenched into fists, my nails digging into the heels of my palms as anxiety squeezed at my chest.

As if reading my mood, Blythe grabbed my hand and forced my fingers straight so she could hold on. “Hey, it’s going to be all right.”

I nodded, inhaling deeply through my nose as I struggled to find my calm. The sound of laughter and voices grew louder the closer we got to the common room, the noise reaching a crescendo as we turned into the large open room. Kids of different ages circled a table off to our left, some with their hands thrown up in victory while others groaned in defeat. And right there in the fray was my little guy.

My heart stuttered and the air expelled from my lungs at the sight of him. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but the fist that had been clenching my chest since getting that phone call instantly released as I watched Levi beam up at the older boy standing beside him and lift his hand to give the kid a high five.

“He totally sunk your battleship, bruh!” the other kid cheered on behalf of my nephew as he pointed across the table.

A smile of relief turned the corners of my mouth up just as Levi turned his head and spotted me.

“Aunt Merri!” he shouted, breaking away from the group and running full speed in my direction.

I crouched as he closed in, catching him in my arms as he launched himself. I let out anoofat the impact, surprised at how much bigger he’d gotten in the two months since I’d last seen him. I wrapped my arms around him and lifted him off his feet, a pang hitting me square in the heart at how much heavier he’d gotten. It wouldn’t be much longer before I wasn’t strong enough to pick him up. But for the time being, I was determined to ignore the strain in my arms and hold on tight.

He pulled back, his eyes glittering with excitement despite everything he’d gone through over the past several hours. “Did you see? I beat Carson in Battleship!”

“I saw,” I said with a small laugh, shooting up a thank you to whatever higher power was looking down for giving my boy such resilience. Holding Levi in, I finally felt like I could take a full breath, and I filled my lungs with the scent of Levi’s familiar shampoo. “That’s ’cause you’re the Battleship king, little dude.”

Someone cleared their throat off to the side, drawing my attention. I twisted my head, my eyes going wide as soon as they locked onto the intense sky-blue gaze of the man who had been taking up way too much of my headspace over the past several weeks.

Tristan Fanning stood a few feet away, dressed in a pair of slacks and a light blue button-down shirt, his badge gleaming from its place on his belt.

I told myself countless times I’d built him up in my head to be something bigger than he really was, that he wasn’t as handsome as my mind was trying to convince me. I’d blamed it on the adrenaline and chaos swirling around that very first encounter, but as I stared at him, I knew I was in big trouble.

Because I realized what I remembered didn’t come close to doing him justice.

Chapter Four

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