Page 79 of Circle of Strangers
Then she’s silent again, and I wonder if this is where she’ll deny knowing me. If she’ll play dumb, pretend she doesn’t recognize the name I’ve carried with me like a scar for years.
The seconds tick by, each one more weighted than the last. And then, finally, she speaks again.
“I didn’t think you’d call,” she says, a hint of a smile in her tone. “But I can’t tell you how happy I am that you did.”
Her words land like they’re stitched together from pieces of someone else’s voice. There’s what sounds like genuine warmth, sincerity. If I didn’t know her better, I’d believe it, too.
It’s an act. It always is with her.
But I’m in a desperate place. I can’t afford to care if she means it or not. My life—my children’s lives—depend on this.
“Do you have time to talk?” she asks.
“Not really,” I say, my voice tight. “I’m calling because ...”
My throat is dry, my lips refusing to form the words they so desperately need to.
On the other end of the line, Lucinda doesn’t press me. She doesn’t ask where I’ve been or why I left. She’s waiting. Waiting for me to speak, to hand over the power. The less one person talks, the more likely it is the other person will volunteer information—a “trick” she taught me a lifetime ago.
I close my eyes for a second, forcing down the nausea rising in my throat. I never thought it would come to this. Never thought I’d be the one reaching out to her for anything, let alone something as grave as this.
“I’m calling because,” I try again, “I need your help with something.”
But the last thing I’ll ever do—the thing I can’t let happen, no matter what—is leave my children to be raised by someone like Will,another manipulative monster, just like the one on the other end of this phone.
Just like the one who raised him.
I don’t want to do this, but I don’t have a choice if I want to keep my children safe.
Will is a hornet whose nest has just been kicked. He’s fired up. Furious. Determined. Reactive. Lucinda has had over a decade to calm down since our altercation. Of the two monsters, she’s the sounder of the two right now—something I never imagined would happen in this lifetime.
I grip the steering wheel with my free hand, steadying myself as the fluorescent lights of the gas station grow blurry and out of focus. I don’t know where this conversation will lead, but one thing is clear: there’s nothing I wouldn’t do if it means keeping my children safe.
Even if it means trusting the one woman I know I shouldn’t: the devil herself.
My grip tightens on the wheel until my knuckles pierce white through my skin. I’ve got nowhere else to go and she has money and a large house and enough incentive not to do anything reckless.
Lucinda, for better or worse, is my best bet until I can get on my feet and figure out the next move.
“What is it, Gabrielle?” she asks, her voice almost singsong. She’s thrilled that I’m asking for her help. The desperation feeds her soul. I canfeelit. “What’s going on?”
“It’s a long story.” Glancing in the rearview, I check on my sleeping children in the back seat, two innocent babies blissfully unaware of the dark tide I’m steering us into. “Can I tell you in person?”
My only job in this world is to keep my children safe, to protect them from harm. And that’s what I’ll continue to do. If Lucinda takes us in, I won’t let them out of my sight for a minute. There won’t be a single morsel of food that passes from Lucinda’s hands to their lips. I’ll supervise each and every conversation.
I’ll make this work.
I have to.
I pull onto the highway, my headlights carving into the night shadows, each mile heavier than the one before. It’s almost as if the road itself is begging me to slow down, to turn around, to stop.
But I don’t.
Because the only way out of this storm is through it.
Epilogue
Will
