Page 16 of Bones

It was anger.

I felt guilty at the surge of emotion, but that did nothing to lessen it.

Ryan always pressed me for visions. It was to help me, but it was still a lot of pressure—especially when his disappointment and the prayer room loomed over my head if I failed. Yet he didn’t want to listen when I had a vision that slightly inconvenienced him.

I’d been the one to tell him to stream the sermon that’d earned the invite. Even with only one week’s notice, I’d arranged everything for the trip. I’d booked the house sitter, cleaning service, pool cleaner, and gardener. I’d packed the suitcases right down to his lucky boxers. All he’d had to do was tell Beacon of Absolution that our trip needed to start in Portland, Maine—not Salem like they’d set.

But he hadn’t.

He hadn’t eventried.

“But that is all I have,” I explained again. “We need to go to Maine first. I don’t know why.”

It wasn’t just that I’d become preoccupied with the state, though I totally had. I’d never been there—that I knew of, at least—but I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. The snow. The trees. Theeverything. It had replaced all my bizarre urges to run. And unlike those, these repetitive thoughts filled me with peace.

My visions said I had to go there first. The specifics were hazy, but something important was going to happen.

I just needed Ryan tolisten.

“That’s not the schedule they set,” he gritted out. “I already had to ask for you to be included. I can’t make them rearrange everything the day before we leave.”

“It’s not rearranging everything. It’s one switch. And if you would’ve talked to them when I?—”

“Enough, Aurora.”

“No, this is impo?—”

“I saidenough!” he roared in my face.

Ryan rarely raised his voice, much less yelled like that. It should’ve been enough to stop me.

It wasn’t.

My temper snapped, and I shouted right back, “I’m not going?—”

That time when he interrupted me, it wasn’t with a harshly shouted order.

It was with the back of his hand slapping sharply across my cheek.

The painful sting spread quickly, warming my skin as tears pricked my eyes. My bottom lip pulsed, and blood dripped down my chin.

But I didn’t swipe at the tears or the blood.

I didn’t speak.

I didn’t move.

I wasn’t even sure I breathed as my wide eyes stared at Ryan.

The only man I’d ever loved. The only person I’d evertrusted.

Regret mixed with the anger in his own brown eyes, and he took a step closer. I braced, ready to fight when he inevitably tried to force me into the prayer room.

But he didn’t touch me.

Abruptly changing paths, he stormed from the house, slamming the door behind him.

The mattress dipped behind me,but I didn’t react. I kept my body loose and my breaths even as I pretended to be asleep.

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