Page 48 of The Freedom in Captivity

She’s making it up.

She could have searched for me afterwards. A decade passing and no explanation.

She’ssorry?

The two conflicting rationales battle in my head, one no closer to victory than the other.

I don’t realize I’m breathing heavier, that my hands are forming fists by my sides, that the sight of Rozelyn in my bed gets hazy with my blurring vision until she murmurs my name.

Does it even matter though?

This might be some grand tale spun for her benefit.

Because even if it is true, why is she protecting him now? If what I remember, what she’s hinted at in that story, is true, and she was abused by him, then why protect him? Why not hand over all his dirty secrets the moment she was captured?

It makes no sense, which is why her lying is the most logical. She’s making it up to fuck with my head more than she already has.

And why tell menow? At a time when it’s most convenient for her.

My head thumps. My gaze is unfocused. I’m losing myself.

She protected me.

No.I shove the intrusive thought away. She wasn’t protecting me because everything she just said was a lie; a well-practiced story she and Stefano weaved before her capture.

Why are you back in my life? Have you returned to make me miserable?

I fucking hate you.

I move before I realize what I’m doing. I place myself directly over her, my palms in the bed by her sides, our bodies lining up. In truth, I don’t have a plan past this—whatever it is I’m doing.

I should shove her right back to the basement but the nagging voice in the back of my head questions her story. Of everything I know of this woman, lying is her second language. But what if…?

She watches me, her blue-green eyes flicking over my face. There’s no fear though. Like this, she reminds me of the girl I once knew. Of the sad face that peered up at me as I approached from the smoke pit that day. She thinks she had her walls up, but I saw through them. She was hiding her sadness, her hopefulness. It’s what I see now.

When she told me goodbye—when she said what she had—she did so with a blank expression, without care. She could have at least faked an emotion then too.

“You’re not good enough—”

I slam the memory to a close before it has a chance to fully form.

“You’re sorry.” I finally speak. “Sorry isn’t cutting it, Rozelyn. Despite what you said, I searched for you, for days, sick with fear that there was something else happening. That something was going on and you were in danger.”

Because despite the blank expression, the lovesick fool I was then was hopeful she was hiding something. So I looked and got nowhere.

I don’t realize I’m still staring at her until she reaches up to touch my face. As fast as her skin brushes mine, I smack her away, pinning both her wrists to the bed at our side.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Kill me or kiss me, Flynn. Because you look confused over which to do.”

I am.

With her beneath me, either is so fucking simple. Her life can be in my hands in mere seconds. Instead—

I kiss her.

Not gently. Not slowly. Not passionately.

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