Page 98 of A Forgotten Mistake

I kneel down in front of Caleb and watch him for a minute. I can’t help but wonder how long he watched her. What made him pick her? What made him so obsessed that he thinks she’s his?

Gabriel walks over to me and slides his hand into my hair. It’s such a familiar gesture that it immediately makes me feel warm. He leans over and tips my head to the side so he can whisper in my ear. “I’m going to step out. When I come back in, I’d like the code.”

I smile at him, relieved he’s finally leaving the room. “I can do that.”

His hand lingers for a moment before he kisses the side of my head and walks out the door.

I lift my head, and whatever Caleb sees in my expression rips his former look of sadness right off his face.

TWENTY-TWO

Gabriel

I look up as rain hits my face. It’s cold, but there’s something calming about the frigid water hitting me while the world feels like it’s spinning around me.

My stomach was in knots coming here. I was frantic. I searched every inch of the buildings and then scoured the land, like I was just going to stumble on a whole field of unmarked graves. I feel like I neededsomethingto reassure me that I’m not going to lose Liam because of a simple mistake.

But now that Liam’s here, I feel strangely at ease. I can tell he’s unsure of what to do. I can tell he’s anxious, more fixated on me than the man in front of him. He’s afraid I’m going to run. And maybe coming here was asking a lot of him, but I felt like I needed to be here. I’m not even sure I understand why.

The sound of the rain beating down around me is oddly calming. And when the door opens, Liam steps up behind me and slides his arms over my shoulders.

“I love you,” he says. “I love you so much.”

“Did you think I was going to be gone or something?” I ask as I reach up and grip his hands. A part of me questions if they’re going to be bloody, but they appear spotless.

“You’re too stubborn for that.” He lifts my fingers up and kisses the tip of each finger, even though the gloves hide my fingerprints that he seems so obsessed with. “You’re as stubborn as that cat of yours.”

“Maybe. Did you get me a number?”

“I did.” He draws me backward into the silo and I turn to face the man, unsure what I expect to see, but besides the sobs, there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with him. No blood, no redness. The only thing off that I notice is a smudge of ink across his finger.

“She’s mine, you don’t fucking understand. She’s mine. She will always be mine,” he sobs out.

“If you wanted her, why’d you take her parents from her?” I ask.

Caleb shakes his head. “They were keeping her from me. She told me she wanted to talk to me, but they restricted her laptop! They restricted her! They were controlling her. And then they started turning her against me. I knew I had to save her.”

“She’s a teenage girl who thought you were the teenage boy of her dreams. When she found out you weren’t, of course she pulled away. Do you really fucking think her parents were the problem?” I ask, feeling weirdly thrilled that I can cuss at him, I can yell at him… there’s no restriction of laws inside this room. There’s nothing worse than dealing with a person who you know hurt innocent people and having to act civil and unbiased.

“Isavedher from them.”

“You ruined her life,” I say. “You ruined everything for her. Of course she’d never want to be with someone like you.”

Liam hands me the phone and I click on the pictures. There are so many pictures of her—in her home, in her bathing suit,with her friends. The longer I scroll, the darker it all gets. The more the obsession deepens.

“You can’t take her from me,” he says, and then he starts straining against his binds. His muscles bulge and his face gets red as he screams and thrashes, but no one will hear him out here. “You can’t fucking take her from me. I will kill you. I will kill everyone who gets in the way of me being with my bride.”

Liam taps on an app on the phone. “Our buddy here likes to write.”

This seems to enrage Caleb. “I’ll kill you. I’ll rip you apart. I’ll cut you apart.”

I don’t know whether all the entries are like this one or if Liam found me the worst example because I can’t even get two paragraphs into it before I hand him back the phone, feeling sick to my stomach after reading the fantasies he has about what he’d do with her.

Liam steps up behind me and wraps his arms around me. “Laws prohibit so much of what we’re allowed to do, but when there’s nothing between you, you get to hear every dirty secret. Every single fantasy… every obsession. You can lay everything out and learn every secret. It’s fascinating seeing the depths of darkness that reside in a mind like this one. One where the world revolves around him and him alone. He is the main character of his world, but even main characters can die.” His grip tightens and he kisses my cheek. “In his ideal world, he steals this child from the safety of her family after slaughtering her mother and father. He believes it’s love he’s showering her with, but in reality, she feels nothing but fear for him. He takes her away and hides her from society to make her his own. If she’s lucky, someday she gets away, but most aren’t lucky.”

“This one is lucky,” I whisper.

Liam’s eyes shift off the man and onto me.

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