Page 76 of Saving Sparrow
“You don’t...”
They held such finality, leaving no room for negotiation. Maybe I shouldn’t have shown up here alone. Maybe I should’ve brought a therapist along. It was arrogant of me to think I could do this by myself. But who would have flown hours into a brutal storm for a stranger who wasn’t even sure his husband was here?
Amelia wasn’t exactly known for her honesty. She’d only given me a tiny morsel of information to get rid of me after I’d tracked her down. I’d tried searching for Elliott myself first—after the authorities failed to find him—but all I could offer the private investigator was his name and that he’d spent some years in Alaska after leaving a religious community. That hadn’t gotten us far, so we’d shifted our focus to finding Amelia.
“How did his parents die?”
“Good question. Maybe Sparrow can give you the answer to that.”
She’d then murmured something under her breath, refusing to give me any more answers before kicking me out. For all I knew, everything she’d said was a pack of lies.
Quentin would’ve gotten more out of Amelia. If he could have, he would’ve set the world on fire looking for Elliott. I wasn’t like him. I wasn’t as strong.
He wouldn’t have agreed with that assessment of me, and knowing that only made me miss him even more. If I was strong, it was because of him. Because he’d made me believe in myself. Without Quentin, I was just an imposter pretending I could do what felt like the impossible.
Until now, I hadn’t fully grasped how little I knew about Elliott. Much of that was because he knew so little about himself, and the rest he’d either omitted or lied about.
“Why, Elliott?” I whispered into the room. Didn’t he know we would’ve loved him through anything?
I sighed because he wasn’t the only one to blame. We’d all been too obsessed and in love to care about much else. This experience had aged me beyond my twenty-seven years, though, and made me wiser in such a short span of time. Love wasn’t enough, and the things that scared us wouldn’t go away simply because we ignored them. Elliott’s past scared him, and so we’d made him a promise to ignore it.
“No more before.”
I understood how stupid we were now.
Pacing seemed like the next best thing to do, so I spent a good deal of time doing that, constantly checking the clock. We’d had dinner, so I assumed that meant it was late evening right now. Although I wouldn’t have put it past Sparrow to be purposely leading me to believe that.
I glanced at the bedroom door, still ajar, itching to leave the room and go exploring on my own.
Was Sparrow asleep right now? Was Joshua awake? Was the other alter? Did we have a…visitor?
If the answer to all those questions was no, that meant Sparrow had control and was wide awake in this house somewhere. Did I really want him to catch me roaming around?
“If you disturb anything in this house, if you venture to areas you don’t belong… I will make you regret it.”
Goose bumps rose along my arms. No, I didn’t want him to catch me roaming around.
But Sparrow was tired, always tired. I took a gamble that he was asleep, or that one of the other alters was awake. Because if they were, that meant they were locked inside their room, leaving me free to snoop around.
I thought about what Quentin would do in my situation and let out a wry chuckle. He’d likely have tied Sparrow up and dragged him out of here or charged down every hall, kicking in doors in search of Elliott. Either option would’ve made the situation worse. This couldn’t be fixed with shouted orders or brute strength. Maybe I was better suited to save Elliott after all.
With that in mind, and a strengthened resolve, I strode for the bedroom door.
The window at my end of the hall rattled, startling me. I spun to face it, hand flying to my chest. Creeping over to it, I rested a palm on the thin pane. The glass was so frigid it felt like placing my hand over fire. Sparrow was right; if the fall didn’t break me, the cold definitely would.
Something creaked in the distance behind me. I wheeled around too fast, causing my healing injuries to scream at me. The hallway was empty aside from me, and I exhaled, bracing my hands on my knees.
The bandage on my elbow flapped open for the second time, and I ripped it off, balling it up and stuffing it in my pocket. I winced as cool air brushed across the rug-burned skin, reminding me I needed to move away from the window. That I needed to move in general.
My throat tickled, and I broke into a cold sweat at the thought of my cough outing me. I’d taken two more pills and was feeling much better already, so I proceeded with my plan, hoping for the best.
I placed an ear against each door as I edged down the hall, holding my breath to better hear any movement on the other side. There wasn’t any, and I backed away from the last door nervously. If Sparrow wasn’t locked in one of these bedrooms, then where was he? I realized how much I’d been counting on him being inside one of these rooms, because now I’d need to find him first before nosing around.
I glanced toward the grand staircase, my legs refusing to move.
I won’t go down… I’ll just peek over. Promise.I lied to myself over and over again until my muscles relaxed, enabling me to inch closer to the mezzanine.
The foyer was empty, but I couldn’t see far beyond the threshold of the living room from here. I squatted slowly, grinding my teeth through the aches in my joints to peer between the loose balusters. It only gained me an additional inch or two.
