Page 26 of The Fix
When they’d walked far enough away, Bess glanced back and then leaned in and whispered, “Do you know him? What was that about?”
Whatwasthat about? Why had she pretended she hadn’t recognized him? He’d seemed angry. And she understood why. Perfectly. Because it’d turned out ... well, it’d turned out in the darkest moment of her life, she’d wronged him. Terribly. She hadn’t known it at the time. It hadn’t been intentional. But he was obviously still angry with her. “Go with Quincy,” she told Bess. “I’ll be right behind you.” She heard Bess make a small questioning sound as she pivoted and began walking back to Rex.
He raised his shoulder slightly on the post, but other than that, he stayed in the same position as she returned to stand below him, where she’d been a minute before. “I ... thank you. I should thank you personally. I’m sorry if this blindsided you. I didn’t know either. That it’d be you. That this”—she swept her hand toward the house—“was you. Is you.”
He paused for a moment, his eyes sliding down her body quickly and then back to her face. His expression gave no indication of what he was thinking. “It’s fine.”
Fine.This felt anything butfine.
She attempted a smile, though it felt as tremulous as her emotions. In one unexpected moment, the past—her unspeakable trauma—had shown up right in front of her. “Okay. Then like you said, win-win.” She walked up the three steps and held her hand out to him. He looked at it and, for a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to shake it, but then he stood straight, dropped his arms, ran a palm over his hip, and gripped her hand. The feel of his hand enveloping hers caused a shiver to run over her skin that wasn’t entirely unpleasant nor purely born of discomfort. What else it was, though, she was too discombobulated to identify. “So ... I’d love it if bygones could be bygones.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he let go of her hand. “Bygones?”
She nodded, her heart pumping faster and causing a slight head rush. This felt all wrong. She was handling this poorly, and she knew it. She’d told him she was sorry he’d been blindsided, butshehad been too. And she was floundering. She didn’t know this man, not then, and certainly not now. And yet there was so much between them. So much. If she hadn’t realized it previously, she realized it now.
Rex squinted off behind her and dragged his teeth over his lower lip before meeting her eyes again. “Can I be forthright?”
She blinked as he obviously waited for her answer to the question she’d thought was rhetorical. “Uh, yes. I hope you will be.”
He squinted off to the side for a moment like he was gathering the proper words, and she drew back slightly as though those words were going to be volleyed at her. “I don’t know exactly what bygones are when it comes to you, Cami,” he finally said, meeting her eyes. “If you’re looking to tuck the past between us away, that’s fine by me.” He paused, his forehead lowering. “I couldn’t be any sorrier for what happened to you. What you survived ... it’s unthinkable. But the fallout ruined me too. I would never compare the losses we suffered; I know mine weren’t even in the same ballpark. I hope you’ve found a way to move forward, even if only in most ways. But, Cami, I really don’t have anything more to say to you than that.” And then Rex Lowe turned and walked back into his house, shutting the door firmly between them.
Chapter Sixteen
Cyrus Sanders came awake on a musty-smelling mattress in an unfamiliar room. For a few minutes, he simply stared at the wooden wall, attempting to retrieve the memory of how he’d arrived there. A flash of dusty shoes moving in front of him raced through his mind, and the sound of a car slowing down in the gravel, over his shoulder. He must have looked to see who was stopping behind him, right? But for the life of him, he couldn’t pluck that memory from his mind. All he remembered was that he’d been walking home from school when the car approached. That was all he recalled before ... now.
Apprehension fluttered between his ribs, but it felt muffled, like someone had thrown a soggy blanket over his emotions. He was scared, but it didn’t feel important. Gingerly, he lifted his aching head, his ears pricked for any sound. He heard the distant drip of water and a far-off rumbling that might be a plane or a train. Birds too. Lots of them.
The bed squeaked loudly as he rolled over, and he stopped moving again as he listened for the approach of footsteps. But if someone was here with him, the sound of the rusty springs hadn’t alerted them that he was awake.
And there had to be someone here, right? The someone who had been in that car that approached before his memory went blank. Before they’d hit him or drugged him or whatever they’d done so that he’d blacked out. Which meant they were bad people who meant him harm.
His head cleared a little more, and that distant fear came closer. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and he realized how dry his mouth felt.
He looked down at his feet, almost expecting to see a chain or a rope binding him to the bed, but they were free, and he was still wearing his shoes. His hands were untied, too, and he sat up slowly, pausing with each squeak of the springs and allowing the mild head rushes to settle. Cyrus took a brief assessment of his body, relieved that he was—so far anyway—unhurt.
There was a bottle of water on the floor by the door, and next to it was a package of Hostess cupcakes.
He stood, waiting again for footsteps that never came. And then, as quietly as possible, he moved toward the one window on the opposite wall and pulled the curtain aside. Bars. There were steel bars outside the glass, far too close together for him to fit through.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
He wouldn’t cry. It had been three years since Cyrus had cried, even though he’d had plenty to cry about, and he wasn’t going to start now.
Someone had nabbed him and put him in a locked room with bars on the window. He pressed his face against the glass, but all he could see was trees. The sky above was a soft orange, which told him the sun was setting. Had it been a day, or more than one? Cyrus wasn’t sure, but he did know that soon, it’d be dark.
The fear overtook him, crashing through his system and ripping through the last of whatever drug they’d given him, and he ran to the door, jiggling the locked knob and then banging on it with his palms. “Hello! Hey! Help! I need help!”
He turned, his chest rising and falling with staggered breaths as he looked around for a weapon or something to use to break the doorknob. Or the glass. He saw something on the floor at the head of the bed and moved toward it. It was a plastic bedpan. Cyrus knew what it was because there had been one in his hospital room after the accident, andthe nurse had told him that if he needed to throw up, that’s what he should use.
He ran back to the window and looked out again. Could he use the bedpan to break the glass? Probably not. He glanced back at the metal bedframe. What about that? Maybe, if he could lift it. But even if he did, and even if he was successful at breaking the glass, he’d only be able to fit one arm through the bars, and from what he could see, he was in the middle of nowhere. He might scream for days, and no one would hear him.
Cyrus sucked back a sob.No.He wouldn’t cry.
He did need to pee, however. His bladder was full, and his pants were dry. Which meant it’d probably only been several hours since he’d been taken. He used the bedpan and then he drank half the bottle of water, leaving the cupcakes where they were.
Then he went to the window and banged on it for a few minutes, yelling for someone—anyone—but receiving no response.
Chapter Seventeen
