Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

EMMA

T he door to the safe room opens. I let out a scream when the figure steps in, a red figure of pure death, covered head to toe in gore. Then my vision clears, and I see my man. He's not covered , but there's a lot of blood on him. He looks wild. He steps aside, his jaw tense, and two women walk into the room, one older and the other younger, wearing old-looking coats. Dad walks in a second later, his face tight. He glances at Jacob as though he's scared of him.

"Wait here," Jacob says. "All of you."

"Jacob," Dad says, sounding much younger like he's afraid of Jacob. "I can help. I can't let you go out there alone."

Jacob sighs and nods. "You'll be safe here."

He leaves the room, giving me no time to pull myself against him, embrace him, and tell him I've never been more relieved about anything than him being alive. Then he and Dad are gone, leaving the room with urgency. The doors close behind them.

The younger woman swallows, her arms wrapped across her middle. "I've never seen anything like that before."

"He did what he had to do," the older woman says, sitting on a low bunk. She wraps her hands around her knees, shuddering.

I grab a blanket and drape it over her knees. She smiles shakily up at me. "Thank you, dear. It's been a crazy couple of days."

"Are you… Jacob's mom?" I ask.

She nods. "Isabell, and you?"

"Emma," I tell her. "I'm…" Your son's girlfriend . "Mike's daughter."

From how the younger woman looks at me, I make a connection.

"Wait… are you Angelica?"

She nods, seeming shell-shocked by whatever they just suffered. I walk over, take her hand, and lead her to the bed. "Sit down. Do you want some water?"

"Uh, yes, sure. Thank you."

I go to the small kitchen area in the corner. It's like a bunker in here, with enough food to survive for days and weeks, but I don't believe Jacob would ever leave us for that long. He'd never abandon us. I take two glasses of water, handing one to Isabell and one to Angelica.

They sip as I fold my arms across my middle, muttering a small prayer.

"What was that, dear?" Isabell asks.

"I was praying."

"For Jacob?"

"For Mike?"

They ask the question at the same time. It's almost enough to make me let out a surreal, insane laugh. Only ten, twenty, maybe thirty minutes ago, I was naked with Jacob, indulging in all our steamiest fantasies. Then Dad saw and after that… How the hell are we going to make it out of this?

"What happened?" I ask, changing the subject.

"He made me tell him where Mike was. I'm sorry, Emma. I didn't want to."

"You did the right thing," I tell her. "You'd be dead now if you didn't."

She looks at me with wide eyes, seeming so young and na?ve. I wonder if this is how I seem to Jacob. Then again, I didn't have to watch whatever happened out there. Angelica lived through it.

"Then they made us sit around the table," Isabell goes on in a quiet voice. "The man in charge started speaking with Jacob. He used your name. I don't speak Spanish, but I think he was threatening you, Emma. As soon as my son heard Emma , he went?—"

"Feral," Angelica whispers, shuddering. "One of them had a gun to his head. There was another just behind me, and the man in charge…"

"He was always tough," Isabell whispers. "Even as a kid, but that was something else. When he heard your name, Emma, he got hold of that man's gun and fired so fast. I hardly saw it. It was like he was possessed. Who are you to him?"

My cheeks flush with the weight and significance of the question. I sit on the bunk next to her. "Uh, I'm his friend's daughter," I say.

"Hmm," Isabell says. "Something tells me it's more than that."

"Oh, no," Angelica says in a deadpan voice. "He's twice her age. That would be weird."

She looks at me and winks. It's so surreal and out of place. I can tell why she's doing it: gallows humor to soak up some of the dread of what just happened. I smile, and then Isabell touches my hand. "Jacob was always cold, even as a boy. He had to be. I wasn't a good mother. I destroyed my mind so I didn't have to face… But when he heard your name, Emma, he wasn't cold. He was alive. He would've died to stop that man daring to use your name."

"You're forgetting what he said at the end," Angelica murmured, "when he stood over the leader. He spoke in English, remember?"

Isabell trembles. "We were rushing from the room, but yes, I do now. He said nobody threatens his lady. Nobody threatens you , Emma. He saved our lives, but he didn't do it for us. He did it for you."

A warm flush moves through me.

"It's none of my business," Isabell goes on. "I gave up my right to be in his life long ago, but Emma, are you together?"

"Yes," I say, and it feels so good to let it out, to make it real. All those years crushing on him, wondering what it would be like, and all it took was a magical blizzard to come along and trap us in love. "No, kind of. We haven't discussed it, but he said he wants a future."

I'm sharing too much. Yet now that the words are out, it's like I can't stop them. It's so much better than holding it trapped inside of me. "And I want one too."

"I think that's fantastic," Angelica beams, as if the warmth of my feelings for Jacob is enough to make her briefly forget what she's lived through.

"Really?" I ask.

"We all saw how much he cared about you, and I can see how much you care about him. It's weird. We don't know each other, but I feel like I know you. Mike is always talking about you—his painting prodigy daughter."

I smile, shaking my head. "I wouldn't go that far. I'd like to get to know you, Angelica."

"Angelica," Isabell says. "Such a lovely name."

Rusty yawns, sitting at the door, facing it as though he's getting ready to protect us.

"What do we do now?" Angelica asks.

"We wait," Isabell says. "Jacob will know what to do."

I clasp my hands together, breathing slowly, thinking for an insane moment I can feel a fluttering deep inside. It's as if we've already created a life together—a future . We've already taken the first step to lead us to our happily ever after. However, we have too many obstacles to think about anything like that yet. For now, it's enough to be here.

"We're an unlikely collection of people, aren't we?" Isabell chuckles. "The junkie mother and the girlfriend who's twenty years younger."

"And the other girlfriend, who's twenty years younger," Angelica laughs with the same dark tone as Isabell.

"Something doesn't have to be normal to be good," I say. "So what if we're all a little messed up? Maybe one day, we'll look back on this as a good day—the day we all met. Maybe one day, when everything is so much brighter than now, we'll be glad this happened because it brought us all together."

Isabell swallows, a tear forming in her eye. She rubs at her face. "I've made too many mistakes for that, dear," she says. "It's Jacob's choice now."