Page 36 of Here and Now
“Tell him, Ash,” I encourage. “I’m sure it’s an ongoing education process.”
She turns to me. “It is. It’s alsoexhausting, and the pay isn’t that great.”
“I bet, you should demand a raise and compensation for mental health.”
Her smile triggers my own. “I will.” She faces him again. “I think you need to tell her what she needs to know, but not make it like this doom-and-gloom thing. Here, I’ll show you.” Her eyes meet mine. “Someone filed a missing person report on you and Kai. Stated they were family, and we’re pretty sure it’s going to be listed in the national database. Now, the last photo they have is the one you sent your friend, and Kai has changed a bit since then. Which is good, but ... you know, you’re the same. Do you remember my best friend, Gretchen?”
“Not really,” I admit, trying to control my rising anxiety.
Ashton gives me a soft smile. “Okay, well, she’s a lawyer and an amazing one. I talked to her, and she thinks she can get it removedfrom the database since it was a false claim. There’s no reason to be nervous at this point, okay? Gretchen is doing what she can on our end.”
I nod. “Does she know where I am?”
“No. No one other than the people who have to know are aware of where you live. You have nothing to worry about.”
What an easy thing to say. Nothing to worry about. I have everything to worry about. My life will never be normal.
“I don’t know about that, Ash.”
“No, I guess it’s a pretty flippant thing to say, and I’m sorry. Of course you’ll worry, just the same as Quinn and I do about you.”
I look to my brother. “Do I have anything to be worried about?”
As much as Ashton is a no-nonsense person and doesn’t hold back, I know my brother will never lie to me. He won’t sugarcoat it or give me false hope.
“No, I worry for you so you can just focus on Kai. We’re still going through the book, trying to find the connections, because Edward talked in riddles. There are names, dates, but nothing aligns. Each time we look into something, we have no evidence that those people were there at that time.” Ashton runs her hand down his arm and takes his hand. Quinn’s eyes meet hers and he smiles.
God, I want that.
I want to be loved so much that someone else just knows what I need and gives it. In all my life, I’ve never gotten to know what that feels like. Edward played the part for a little while in the beginning. He would buy me flowers, show up at my work with my favorite lunch. There were lavish gifts and fancy dinners, but the minute I moved in, it all ended. It was as though a switch was flipped and there was nothing I could do to get back the man I thought I had.
Whatever he got mixed up in killed him and destroyed me.
“There has to be something. Some tie to make them all a part of whatever he was in. I think it was drugs, but I can’t be sure. Look, I like it here, Quinn,” I tell him. “Kai likes it here. He’s making friends, and I really don’t want to move again.”
“I know.”
I push my fingers through my hair. “Then please, we needto find something that we can use to stop them from hunting me. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“There is nothing leading to Ember Falls. Every trace, every lead, everything has been wiped clean. I’ve gone over everything I possibly could. Just stay off the internet, which I know you do, but the less of a digital footprint you leave, the better.”
I was taught that the day he showed up to help me disappear. I have no social media under my name. It’s all fictitious, and the only thing I do is scroll. Penelope Miller doesn’t exist anywhere, or at least those accounts have gone dead.
Now I get to watch my old friends have families, lives, and do all the amazing things through social media. At least, the ones who have their accounts public. Quinn does reach out to two of them to let them know we’re safe, but that’s it.
Sometimes, if I’m feeling maudlin, I think about how this is what it must be like to be dead. People move on with their lives, forget about you, maybe randomly will see or hear something, and you pop into their brain for a minute before they go back to life.
“I’m careful. I don’t like or comment or do anything. Everything on the new account is literally just scrolling. I don’t even follow anyone just in case they’re watching that.”
“Good. One more update. About three hours after we moved you from Tennessee, a private investigator and someone else did show up at your last house. It was good we moved you when we did.”
I lean against the counter, looking out the back window, where Kai and my nephew are playing. I used to wonder when this would ever stop, but I quickly realized that it never will.
That’s the sad part. I saw the only proof of why Edward was killed.
All they want is for me to be silent forever, and the only way they can accomplish that is to kill me.
“Penny?” Ashton calls my name.
