Page 204 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
My hands wouldn’t stop shakingas I stood at the high table, my mind forever spinning as I refolded a bunch of fuzzy, soft sweaters.
Wondering how I was still here. In this town. How I’d shown up here at Ivy Threads this morning like it was just another day, though I’d wandered around the shop more like a zombie than anything else.
I’d left Theo’s texts he sent last night unanswered.
Theo
Can I see you?
Theo
We need to talk.
Theo
Need to know you’re okay.
Theo
Please, Piper. Talk to me.
Ignoring his pleading, I’d tried with everything I had to pack our things, but instead, I’d lain there on the floor, rocking and crying for hours as I warred with the collision of grief and apprehension and this feeling like the roots I’d allowed to sprout had grown too deep.
My spirit a toil of uncertainty.
Unsure if I’d been grounded or trapped.
Terrified I was only repeating every horrible mistake I’d made when I’d been so naïve. Ignoring the signs that had been staked right in front of me like proof.
Visions ran on a constant circuit, unable to get the gruesome scene out of my mind. The viciousness that had taken Theo hostage when he dragged the blade of that knife across that man’s throat.
All while it clashed with the sense that what he and the rest of the guys were doing was right.
A dire, appalling necessity.
Because what was he supposed to do? Let them get to Alicia and Lucy?
Nausea rolled in my stomach at the thought. I had the sudden realization that if that knife was in my hand, I likely would have done the same.
No choice but to protect when someone else sought to destroy.
But how did you survive in a life like that? I’d struggled for years to leave the corrupt behind. To run from its grips. To stay one step ahead of it so we might have a chance at a normal life.
Someway.
Thinking if I somehow fought hard enough for it, we would finally stumble on it.
And I’d crashed directly into a bed of iniquity.
Or maybe this was exactly where we belonged.
So, I’d spent the night drifting in and out of vivid, disturbing dreams.
Nightmares from when I was nineteen. The blood. So much blood. Justin at the frayed ends of my mind as he hunted me.
They’d shift and flash to nightmares of the viciousness that had been written in bold, disturbing lines on Theo’s face when he killed that man.
Then they’d ultimately swing to nightmares of never seeing him again.
