Page 65 of Montana Silence

Everything came crashing down at once. They knew where I was. For sure, they knew where I was. They knew what kinds offlowersI’d planted. They wanted me back.

I should have known I would never escape from him. They said those words all the time. Once you became part of The Family, you were always a member. They would take care of you. Never let you go without.

Really, they meant they owned you. You would never be able to leave. No matter how far you ran, they would drag you back, kicking and screaming. It didn’t matter what you wanted. The Family came first.

“Mara.” Liam’s voice penetrated the fog. “Mara, sweetheart, I need you to look at me.”

Look at him? Where was he? Where was I?

“You’re okay. You’re with me. You’re in your house.”

I wasn’t. I was nowhere. I was where they wanted me to be. I was in the closet. Quiet.Shhhhhh

“Come back to me, Mara.” The words were so gentle they hurt. How could I get back to him when I couldn’t find him?

What was that? I smelled something. Flowers. The kind of green scent that happened when flowers were crushed. They left sticky residue on your hands and fingers.

I breathed it in, and Liam’s face resolved in front of me. He was crouched in front of me, watching me carefully. I was on the floor in my house, and I didn’t remember how I’d gotten there. My body felt weak—like I’d run miles without water.

The box. We’d come to get some clothes, and there was the box. “They’re never going to stop,” I said. “They know where I am now, and if he gets out, he wants me back. They’re right, no one ever leaves. They only disappear. They’re not going to stop.”

Liam pulled me to him, lifting me off the floor and holding me to his chest before sitting on the couch. “They’re not going to do anything to you, Mara. Not while I’m here.”

“They will,” I said. “They’ll send more people to attack you.”

“I don’t care.”

I shoved my face into his shirt. “You should. I don’t want them to hurt you. I don’t want to go back, but if it’s just me, I’m the only one who gets hurt. They can’t come here. They’ll hurt you. What if they hurt someone else? What if they find baby Avery or Emma? I shouldn’t be here.” The words spilled out of me incoherently. They weren’t really words to me—just thoughts.

Dread spread across the landscape of my mind, drying up all the possibilities and paths into the future. No one ever got out. Not even Mom.

I never knew what had happened to my mother, and the deepest part of me told me I didn’t want to know. Only pain lay down that path.

“Mara,” Liam said, lifting me and arranging me so I straddled his lap. He took my face in his hands. “Nothing is going to happen to you or me. Understand?”

I shook my head, but he held me still.

“Yes. No one here is going to let anything happen to anyone. Our family isn’t like theirs. We protect our family. We don’t enslave them. Nothing is going to happen to us or Emma or baby Avery. I promise.”

“You can’t know that.”

His face hardened. “I know we’ve been through everything, and we’re still here. And I know we’ll do everything in our power to keep each other safe. Don’t get me wrong, Mara. He’s trying. Malcolm saw us together, and he hates it. He’s trying to scare you and scare me away. But that isnot. Going.To. Happen.”

My vision blurred with tears, which spilled over. Liam brushed them away with his thumbs. “I’m in this with you,” he said gently. “I’m not going anywhere. He doesn’t scare me.”

“He scares me.”

“I know. But I’ve got you.”

I gave in to the pain and fear building in my chest and cried. I’d cried when we were in Phoenix, but it was different. Those tears had been panic and sickness—a buildup of being under Malcolm’s gaze and fighting memories.

This was everything else.

This was shattering.

This was every time I’d pretended everything was fine and simply stayed quiet when I’d wanted to scream and shout. Even now, my voice wasn’t fully present because they’d stolen it from me.

Liam held me and didn’t flinch or back away even for a second. He held me and anchored me even though I was ruining his shirt and we’d had an incredible evening with friends.

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