Page 134 of Ringer's Freedom

“Princess? Are you there?”

A deep breath. More silence.

“How are you?” I ask with a smile in my voice.

A frustrated sigh hits my ear. “How the hell do you think I am? I just got you back and you’re already there again!”

I let out a chuckle at her sass. “Ah. There’s my girl.”

Another huff.

“Ghost says you have a new friend?”

“Her name is Kourtney. She swears she’s going to get you out, and I really fucking hope she does because she’s gorgeous and badass and I really don’t want to have to hate her.”

I let out a true laugh this time and rest my head against the metal top of the phone base. “Well, for both of our sakes, I hope she’s right too, baby.”

“We’re going to come up there soon. I’m not leaving that police station without you.”

“I don’t doubt it, Princess.”

Lilah’s well-oxygenated with the amount of sighing and damn deep breaths she’s taking. It pains me to know how worried she is.

“I really love you, Emmett.”

My eyes fall closed, and I thump my head against the metal a few times. “I love you too, Lilah Jane.”

“Promise?”

I smile at her unusual insecurity. “I swear. See you soon, baby.”

“See you.”

I wait for the dial tone before hanging the phone back on the base. I turn a hardened gaze on Michael, who stares at me with a frown. “Go.”

I follow his command and walk back down the hall toward the holding cell with my hands behind my back. There isn’t anywhere for him to go, so I know he has no other choice but to listen. “Look man, for what it’s worth, I am terribly sorry.”

“Shut it, Mack.”

“If it were my brother, I’d want me dead. So I understand why you hate me, but I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Maybe not this time, Mack. But the urn on my mantle tells another story.”

“I did my time for that.”

“Not enough,” he mumbles under his breath as we get closer to the cell.

I want to stop short and explain myself, to apologize, to say anything. But I know nothing I say will take away from the fact that he doesn't have a little brother anymore, even if said brother was a piece of shit at the time and trying to drug underage girls.

Michael shoves my back into the holding cell and slams the door shut with a clang, locking me inside before he stomps away, leaving me alone once again.

I became perfectly okay with being alone after eight whole years of it, but just a few months of living in unrestricted freedom and being around people all the time has softened me. The loneliness eats at me now.

I drop down on the single bunk and stare at the sharp fluorescent light, imagining the future I wish for with Lilah. In it, I’m not stuck in this hellhole again. Anything but that.

I scoff and kick the foot of the bed as I recall the car ride to the station, and anger rises through my system all over again.

“It was only a matter of time before your little ass was put back exactly where you belong. You and the rest of thatclubare all scum,” Michael Truden spouts from the front seat of his police cruiser. It seems like his behavior isn’t surprising to his partner as she stays completely silent and gazes out her window in the passenger seat.

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