Page 24 of Uncontrolled

“Come on,” he says and gently urges me onto the mattress.

“I can’t sleep now. I—”

“Do you remember what you said to me when you got off the bus?” he says. “When I asked you what was wrong?”

I don’t answer.

“You were limping?” he nudges. “You told me a tracking device stabbed you.”

I wince. I said it, but I hadn’t been serious. Not really, not totally.

“You said you didn’t know if you were too paranoid or not paranoid enough.” He waits to see if I’ll acknowledge him. I study the sheet in my hands. It’s torn, my backup set, the one not marred by the stains from when I stabbed Christopher.

A mad thought wriggles into my head. Everything I own is slowly being covered in his blood.

“You said you were losing your mind.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I insist. I lay back. Beneath my head, the pillow is cool and calling.

“The paranoia, the nightmares…” He radiates concern as he kneels beside the bed. He pauses as if waiting for me to get angry. I’d take up the cue, but I’m caught in the memory of when I took the bullet in the cabin and Christopher smuggled me into the woods. He kept me safe then, protected from Jamison.

It was also when I overheard the phone call that clued me in on all the lies.

I trust him now.

I’ve told myself a thousand times. I trust him. I have to trust him.

“This isn’t a life, Allie.” He adjusts until he sits cross-legged on the floor and I scoot on the mattress so we’re almost eye to eye, inches apart. “You’re smothering yourself away in this apartment, jumping at shadows. I can barely get you outside.” He scrapes at his thumbnail. “Talia’s burning out, same as you. She’s going to need your help soon.”

“Yeah,” I say after a beat. Talia’s taken on too much. I’m supposed to be there for her. I have to step up.

“If Talia’s right, if the hunters are coming…” He pauses and I know why he’s wavering. He doesn’t want to add to my paranoia. He doesn’t want to make me worse.

“I’m screwing this up, aren’t I?” I ask. “That’s what you’re trying to tell me?”

Lines dig between his brows. “No!” he says with such force that I wonder if I am imagining things. “You’ve got to snap out of this before you can’t. It’s like you’re shutting down.”

As exhausted as I am, I can’t quite work the rampage into my voice I’m shooting for. “I’m sorry my grief and uncertainty are inconvenient for you. I’ve had a rough couple of weeks.”

“I know,” he says. “It’s okay to let people help you.” With every blink, he fills my vision, the only thing I see. He’s here, he stayed, and now he’s desperate to get through to me and I hate every caustic word I’m using to push him away. Because none of them are working. If I’m honest, I don’t want them to work. What does that say about me? “It’s okay to let me help you,” he adds.

“Not with the hunters,” I finally concede. “Not with anything having to do with the blood.”

He hesitates as if weighing his choices. “Rent, then,” he says. “Bills. I’m allowed to do that, right?”

“How?” Unless he got an interview he somehow forgot to mention, our job hunt is utterly bleak.

“On a stellar day, I can get fifty bucks busking down by the creek by the shops.” His thumb sweeps my cheek. “It’s not much.”

It’s more than he’d earn at any of the throwaway retail jobs we’ve applied for in a shorter period. Though, downtown is also where the hunter spotted him.

“If—”

He leans forward and kisses me to swallow the argument he knows is rising to my lips.

“I have to do something,” he tells me. The word puffs against my skin and I nod. He’s right. I can’t hold him prisoner. “A couple hours,” he promises.

One of my hands hangs over the edge of the bed.

---