Page 150 of Prey

He wouldn’t understand it unless he experienced it himself.

27

RYLEIGH

Five days had passedsince Roman ‘abducted’ me from my parents’ neighborhood.

Mom had texted a few times, wanting to know why I suddenly decided to go back to my apartment, and each time, I had given a very vague response.

After a while, she stopped asking, but I knew I couldn’t avoid her forever.

Not when she was now the only parent I had left. It didn’t matter how rocky our relationship had been since the incident when I was fourteen. I didn’t want the same thing that happened with Dad to happen with her.

I didn’t want her to suddenly leave me like Dad did while things were… not right between us.

Although, to say things hadn’t been right between us as he took his last breath was an understatement.

I tried to breathe past the pain of how he had looked at me, the sting of betrayal clear in his eyes. I just wanted to shut the memories off.

I pulled up to my parents’ driveway, frowning a bit.

It wasn’t my parents’ house anymore.

This was my mom’s house.

I rubbed at my chest from the thought and climbed out, walking to the front door.

It opened as soon as I stepped foot on the porch, and I looked up at my mom.

She looked the same as always.

Still perfect and elegant and pretty.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

“Home.”

She looked at something behind me before turning to fully look at me. “This is your home.”

I shook my head. It hadn’t been my home for a long time now, and we both knew it.

She opened the door wider for me to come in and muttered something about making tea.

That had always been her solution to everything.

I wondered if she knew there was no amount of tea for us to drink that would magically fix… whatever this was between us.

I blinked and took in the house I had grown up in. It didn’t change. Not since I was born, and it hadn't changed since I left about a week ago. Yet somehow, something felt different, and I didn’t know what that was.

Dad rarely spent his time at home, so it wasn’t like his absence should affect the energy in the house, but it did, and for some reason, that seemed much more noticeable today.

I followed her into the kitchen and sat on the barstool by the island as she set about to boil the water.

I didn’t know where Masha, her housekeeper, had gone, and I didn’t ask.

What my mom chose to do with her staff was none of my business, but I thought it would be a good idea to call her back, considering the state of everything.

Perhaps that was why everything felt off today because it wasn’t as clean as usual.

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