Page 58 of The Monster I Loved
With my eyes back on the sidewalk, I felt a sudden chill. Thaddeus often cracked the windows in his car to enjoy the fall weather. Realizing I’d forgotten to grab a jacket, I wrapped my arms around myself.
Thaddeus must have noticed and carefully used one hand to reach in the back seat, grab his jacket, and shove it toward me without a word.
“I’m fine,” I muttered.
“Just take it.”
I bit my lip. The warmth of the jacket called to me, weighing on my lap as I sorted through the clashing thoughts in my mind. I didn’t want to owe him anything, not even warmth, but I hadto consider the situation. Time was everything, and did I really want to be shivering while I needed to be focused on finding a vulnerable child?
I took the jacket and pushed my arms through it. It was way oversized.Like wearing your boyfriend’s hoodie. A brief flashback to the fall days when I used to steal his hoodies struck me. I’d curl up on the couch, smirking when he strolled in naked from the waist up, discovering me, the so-called clothes snatcher.
This time, fuzzy feelings didn’t fuel the offering. But it did bring a warmth that I suspected wasn’t only from the jacket’s thick material. It smelled of Creed Aventus cologne, the same brand he wore years ago. I gave him a bottle on his birthday, and after that he never went a day without spraying it on.
As we waited eagerly for a red light to change, I took one last whiff before returning my mind to the pressing matter at hand. Wylie.
Thaddeus and I sat together, silently united in fear over the lost boy.
Seconds passed as I sat rigid in the passenger seat. Of all the people I could have been paired with for this, of all the people I could have leaned on in this unbearable moment, it had to be him. If it were anyone else, I could have let the fear show. I could have cried, or screamed, or reached for their hand just to feel a human connection through the panic. But not with Thad. Not when I had once tried to kill him. Not when I still couldn’t look at him without remembering all the ways he had wronged me.
Still, as the silence stretched between us and the weight of Wylie being missing pressed heavier on my chest, a thought snuck in uninvited. What if it were our baby? The one growing inside me right now. What if it were ours that had vanished? The idea gutted me. And worse, what would Thaddeus do if it were his child missing? I knew the answer instantly. He would tearthe world apart. He would burn it all down to find them. And in that terrifying, sobering moment, I understood something I had not wanted to admit. No matter what I felt about him, no matter how deep the anger or how long the resentment, this baby tied us together in a way I could not undo. We would both fight to keep him or her safe. We would both bleed for them. And that meant I could not afford to harm Thaddeus. I can’t kill him!
Unable to take it anymore, I said my worst fear out loud. “What if something happened to him?”
I looked at Thaddeus. Not the hard angles or the tension in his neck. Just his eyes. And for the first time in a long time, I saw something I hadn’t expected.
He was just as scared as I was.
“He’s fine,” he said gruffly, even though his breaking voice betrayed his lack of confidence. “We’re gonna find him.”
I bit my lip hard. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Thaddeus looked straight ahead at the road. “He has to be fine. Henry will never forgive himself if he lost his son.”
Leaning forward, I placed my elbow on my knees, scanning the face, hair color, and body type of everybody the car passed on my side of the street. Nervously, I tapped my finger on the dashboard. I couldn’t sit still, and Patriots Park felt too far away, even though it was less than one mile from us.
Unable to help it, I stared back over at Thaddeus, the father of my unborn child. Wylie wasn’t his son, and he’d only known the child for a few weeks, yet he gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were white. Beads of sweat gathered at his temple, and another slid down his face. He kept checking his side window, scanning the sidewalks, then snapped his eyes forward to make sure we didn’t crash.
Thaddeus jerked the wheel and cut across two empty lanes. We’d finally arrived at the park. His tires screeched as we pulled into the parking lot. Thaddeus pressed the button to shut off theengine and jumped out of the truck. My door slammed behind me as I sprinted after him.
“Wylie?”
“Wylie!”
We searched the whole area. Behind the benches, trees, and the playground area.
No Wylie.
Thaddeus’s eyes had darkened now, and I knew what he was thinking. Wasting little time in exchanging words, he ran in the direction of the library. Yanking open the heavy door, Thaddeus waited for me to walk in, then we broke the one cardinal rule in the library. Being quiet.
“Wylie?”
“Wylie!”
Fear gripped me when I realized he wasn’t there either.
Thaddeus ran out of the library; I followed behind him.
I swallowed hard as my hands shook, and my heart pounded louder than my feet slamming against the pavement. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t here. I had my money on finding Wylie at the first place we checked, or at least already having received a call to say he’d been found by one of the others. I ran my hand through my hair in panic. Seemed I wasn’t the only one.
