Page 149 of Always Red (Chasing Red 2)

“If it were up to me, I’d have sent her to prison for what she did to you.”

“She’s sick, Caleb. She needs help. The clinic is a form of prison too.”

He lowered his head so I wouldn’t see his eyes, as if he was ashamed by what he had just said. “I know. I think I’m still angry. Once I realized that Beatrice-Rose had you,” he continued, his voice deepening, “I don’t even remember how I got there. Everything was a blur. When I saw that gun pointed at you, when I saw you bleeding…” He rubbed both his hands over his face.

“Caleb—”

He stopped suddenly and pulled me to him as if he was afraid to let me go. “I will never let anything or anyone hurt you ever again. I can’t lose you, Red. I can’t bear it. I won’t.”

I closed my eyes, burying my face in his neck and wrapping my arms around his torso. My heart constricted from the pain I heard in his voice.

“I won’t go anywhere, Caleb,” I whispered.

He seemed to calm down, and we continued our walk. I thought we were just walking with no destination in mind, but I realized that my feet were leading me to a particular place.

My heart started to pound when I saw a familiar bend in the road. Somehow, it looked more ominous than I’d remembered. A giant black rock jutted out of the ground onto the side of the road. It used to hold a sign, but the sign was gone now.

My palms began to sweat, and I pulled away from Caleb’s grasp, but he held on firmly.

“I’m here, Red. Right here,” he promised.

I smiled back at him, nodded, and continued to walk until we stopped in front of what was once my home with my parents. I recoiled at the sight of it, at the ugliness of the decaying house. My mom’s garden, always immaculate, was now a home for weeds and garbage. Most of the windows were broken, holes perforated the walls, and the roof was completely gone. Cold now, I wrapped my arms around my torso, my steps faltering.

“Red?”

I swallowed, but my mouth had dried up. My legs felt leaden, every step heavy, but I continued to walk toward the house.

“Stop,” Caleb said, alarmed. “What is it?”

I closed my eyes again. Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I wasn’t actually standing in front of my childhood nightmare. For a moment, I let myself drown in the ugly memories.

“Come back to me, baby.”

When I opened my eyes again, it was Caleb’s face I saw in front of me. His green eyes showed kindness and honesty and, most of all, love.

“Where’d you go?” he asked, cupping my face in his hands so he could look into my eyes. All I wanted was to hide.

“Just…memories.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“They’re not good ones.”

“I’m okay with that.”

I pulled away from him and faced the house again, as if I could will it to disappear.

“I remember…” I looked up, blinking away the tears that threatened to spill. “I remember the feeling of my mom’s fingertips when she wiped my tears. The way her voice broke when she told me not to cry. But I couldn’t stop crying.

“He had already left us by then. We were forced to move out of our house because she couldn’t pay the mortgage. She thought I was crying because we were leaving our house in the country and moving to the city. But it wasn’t that.

“I was crying because I felt relieved. I was happy that he wouldn’t be able to find us again. That he wouldn’t be able to hurt us anymore.”

“Your dad,” Caleb whispered.

“Yes. She had a friend in the city, and we stayed there for a bit until my mom found a job. But she was still waiting for him. Still hoping he’d come back.”

“Did he?”

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