Page 134 of Hounded

“He’s in trouble,” I said, and my shard of hope snapped in two.

Sully made a dissenting sound. “He might’ve gotten held up. Stopped for dinner or something.”

“He wouldn’tstop for dinner,” I spat the words. “He wouldn’t stop for anything. He’s coming right back, and it’s not gonna be like last time. It’s not.” Tears welled up, and I had never been more certain that being a crybaby was my foremost superpower.

I crushed the phone to the side of my face while I curled into myself.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry,” Sully said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

She was patronizing me. Coddling the stupid,forgetful boy who couldn’t take care of himself. Couldn’t be trusted with the truth about who and what he was. Couldn’t be left alone for three fucking weeks without diving headlong into a baggie of pills.

“Loren said the same thing,” I said, “and I didn’t believe him, either. They treat him shitty, Sully, he has scars everywhere…”

I’d seen them first in the bathhouse, then studied them the night we had sex, when he’d stood in my bathroom in just a towel like a gift from heaven. The view was amazing, but the thought of anyone putting marks on that man, injuring him and making him bleed, stirred me to sickness.

I didn’t mean to ramble, but Loren didn’t like to talk about himself, or much of anything, so Sully became my sounding board as I carried on.

“They didn’t want him to leave, but he got out, and he came back for me, and now they’re gonna hurt him worse.” Tears strangled me so my last statement came out as a croak. “I know it.”

Sully’s voice became a drone while my mind raced. I barely knew Loren, but it felt like I’d known him forever. When I dreamed, it was about him. When I got high, he was there. I’d let him kidnap me, for god’s sake. I was ready to let him drag me across the continent because I believed him when he said he would take care of me. I trusted him implicitly.

I wanted him from the moment we met. Now, I was certain that I needed him, too.

It felt like my head was underwater, like I was drowning until one thought dragged me to the surface. It didn’t make me less afraid. If anything, it made me muchmore so.

“Sully, I love him,” I blurted, unsure if or how that statement fit into the conversation she’d been carrying on.

She paused for a handful of seconds, then replied, “Of course, you do.”

“I should’ve told him. I wanted to—”

“Indy?” Sully cut in, stopping me from sliding down the spiral of panic. “Hang tight. I’m coming to pick you up.”

“Okay,” I said, then I said it again, but I didn’t believe it.

It wasn’t okay.Iwasn’t. Maybe I never had been and, when my mind drifted again to the campground office’s first aid section, and I wondered how much cough syrup I could drink before it made me puke, I worried I never would be.

But Lorenneededto be okay. He had to be because I loved him, and I was going to tell him so the moment I saw him again.

The phone line was still live, and I heard Sully moving around, grabbing car keys and probably a purse on her way out the door.

I’d told Loren to be safe, and it hadn’t done a bit of good. So, for Sully, I had a different message.

“Hurry.”

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