Page 133 of An Inconvenient Marriage
The backs of my eyes stung. I blinked, and two hot tears rolled down my cheeks. “No, no, no.”
She couldn’t be gone. I’d just fucking found her.
32
Natalie
Iwasn’tunconscious,butI wasn’t fully aware either. My mind spun, or maybe it was the world around me. I wasn’t entirely sure.
It was dark and yet somehow familiar… safe.
What’s happening?
I took a breath. Instead of air flowing to my lungs, razor blades sliced their way down my throat and into my chest.
Something warm pressed against my cheek. Soothing and intimate. My whole body begged to turn and fall deeper into this comforting embrace. But something held me back.
There was a war within me, one I didn’t fully understand.
One part of me screamed to run.
The other part begged to be held.
I had to open my eyes. Taking another painful breath, I tried to pry my lids apart. They were too heavy, and when they finally opened just a little, the light was too bright.
Wincing, I quickly squeezed them shut again.
“Natalie! You’re alive.”
That voice. I knew it. It was good and safe. My heart picked up speed, and I tried one more time to open my eyes. Slowly, very, very slowly, I pried my lids apart.
And there he was, tears running down his face and a smile on his lips.
His fingers brushed over my skin. “I thought I’d lost you.”
There was a tapping inside my head. Like my brain was trying to put together two pieces of a puzzle that wouldn’t fit. There was Zach on one piece and my father on the other… and something else.
But what?
“What happened?” The words came out hoarse and broken with only a few audible syllables. I cleared my throat and immediately cried out in pain.
“Shh.” Zach’s other hand came up so he could cradle my face between his palms. “He’ll never hurt you again.”
My brows pulled together, and for the first time I noticed his bloodied appearance. Fragments of a memory slipped into my consciousness. A fight. A bat. Not being able to breathe. But then it was gone before I could hold on to it.
“Answers.”
Zach froze at my one-word whispered demand. Color drained from his face, and he flattened his lips into a thin line.
Everything went quiet. Eerily so. It was just me and him… andthis thingbetween us. Locked on each other’s gazes, we didn’t even dare to breathe.
Then complete chaos erupted.
The office door flew off its hinges. Shouting rang through the room a second before officers piled through the opening with their guns drawn.
More shouting.
“No pulse,” someone yelled.
