Page 71 of Strangers in Love

If she would’ve said anything about me having had sex with Eoin, I would’ve walked out, but since she kept that secret, I tried to sympathize with what she must’ve been going through while I was gone. Even though my kidnapping hadn’t been anywhere near her fault, I knew her well enough to know she felt guilty. And while I loved our parents, I didn’t doubt that there had been hints that if she hadn’t been in the hospital, I wouldn’t have been taken. They wouldn’t have come out and said it directly, especially since it wasn’t as if Freedom’s emergency appendectomy was something she’d had any control over, but the thought still would’ve been there.

Personally, I thought we both would’ve been taken, and honestly, most likely killed because Freedom would’ve fought back. Not just to keep them from taking her, but to protect me too. I doubted we ever would’ve made it to the warehouse, and even if we had, her presence wouldn’t have made things better there either.

Not for her or me. Not for our parents, either.

They wouldn’t have had anyone to lean on and no one to think of hiring a mercenary group to rescue us. Definitely not those particular men. And who knew if another team would’ve been successful.

I didn’t want to have that conversation anytime soon. Or ever, really. Seeing Freedom in my nightmare had been enough for me.

Telling my parents any of it wouldn’t do any good, anyway. Trying to convince them that they were laying on guilt trips so thick one could choke on them would’ve been just as pointless as trying to explain to them that they were too overprotective of me in the first place. In their minds, everything they did was to protect us.

So I sat and let them fuss over me while we ate dinner, keeping a tight smile plastered on my face until my cheeks hurt. I ate tiny bits, even though it was my favorite meal and I was hungry. If I didn’t, Mom would just keep telling me to eat more.

“You’re sure Dr. Stein said a CT scan wasn’t necessary?” Mom had asked some variation of that question twice already.

And she’d asked it of Freedom every time. Just like every other medical question.

“I’m fine, Mom,” I said as I drank the last of the water she’d set in front of me. Even though I’d drunk enough on the flight for Dr. Stein to have said I wasn’t dehydrated, Mom had kept insisting I needed more. All that had really done was make me take unnecessary trips to the bathroom, but that’d been a small price to pay for helping her feel like she was doing something helpful.

“I still think she should have admitted you.” Dad eyed me closely. “I don’t think discharging you was the wisest choice of action, considering you’d been held by those barbarians for nearly a full week. You should have been kept overnight for observation at the very least.”

I was tempted to ask him if he’d earned a medical degree in that same short time, but that would’ve been both snarky and disrespectful. After all they’d been through, I was trying to keep things pleasant, no matter how irritated I was getting. Each time I looked at my phone to check the time, however, it became harder to pretend.

When Mom and Dad finally decided to go to bed, it was still early, and I was climbing the walls. I half-expected them to tell me that they’d stay up until I went to bed or that one of them wanted to sit with me while I slept, but they seemed satisfied knowing that Freedom wasn’t going to leave my side.

Ever again, probably.

“Needless to say, they haven’t been sleeping well,” Freedom said as she sat down next to me on the couch. “I kept telling them both that it wouldn’t do anyone any good if they put themselves in the hospital.”

“They’re going to follow us back to Stanford, aren’t they?” I sighed as I stood and stretched. Between the long flight and not being able to move more than a foot since I stepped into the house without tripping over someone, I was stiff and aching all over.

“Well, since Mom thinks you’re staying here until after Thanksgiving, they won’t have to go all the way to Stanford to see you.”

I groaned. “You told her we’d stay until Thanksgiving?”

“No,” Freedom said with a smirk. “I told heryouwould stay until after Thanksgiving since you’d want to spend time with her and dad after you’ve had an experience that makes you look at life with a new appreciation.”

I stared at her for a moment and then did something I’d never done to her before.

I flipped her off.

Her eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped. “Wow. I did not seethatcoming.”

“Well, here’s another one you probably didn’t see coming.” I looked longingly at the door. “I need to get out of here.”

She frowned. “What?”

“I mean it, Freedom. I was kept in a cell for almost a week, then spent several hours in a hotel room, then more than twelve hours on a plane.” I struggled to keep my voice from rising. “I went straight from the plane to the hospital and now here. I haven’t had a single second of freedom from the moment those men took me.”

I refused to let myself think about how free I’d felt when I’d been in Eoin’s arms. When I’d chosen to act on the impulse that my nightmare had brought out. In some ways, it was one of the few decisions I’d actually ever made completely on my own.

“Is there somewhere, in particular, you want to go?” Her tone was a strange combination of annoyed and curious.

I decided to ignore the fact that I didn’t think it was fair of her to be annoyed at me when I wasn’t expecting anything of her. She didn’t have to come, after all. I was an adult, and I was only telling her this because I was trying to be considerate.

“I don’t really have any preference,” I said. “I just want to be somewhere…normal.”

She considered me for a few seconds and then stood up. “All right. But I’m coming with you.”

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