19

19

STACEY

“If you fart in my face, I’ll tell Kade.”

I scoff as Tobias pushes me further up the tree with a camera strapped around my neck. “Kade has heard me fart plenty of times, thank you very much.”

When I look down, he’s shaking his head then smiling. “Aria accidentally farted once, and she was mortified. It smelled terrible, and she walked out of the room with the reddest face. I found it cute.”

I screw my nose up. “I don’t think anyone has ever referred to my farts as cute.”

Tobias snorts. “Well, you aren’t Aria.”

I nearly slip on a weak branch, glancing down again as he holds me up by the backs of my thighs. “You relate everything back to her.”

He shrugs. “You don’t see her the way I see her. Everything reminds me of Aria.”

My foot slips, nearly hitting his face, and I giggle out an apology. “Sweet but obsessive. One would assume you were a psychopath, Mr Mitchell.”

Tobias is used to our banter, so he just chuckles deeply. “At your service, little one. Can you hurry the fuck up? You’re not exactly light.”

I fake a gasp. “I haven’t trained in a studio for months.” Far too long. I miss it. “And you and Aria keep cooking the fattiest foods ever.”

“Spare me. Move, or I’ll intentionally drop you.”

I laugh loudly as I grab a thick branch and pull out of his hold. I sit myself securely, unravelling the camera from my neck and wrapping the strap around the thick trunk. Once it beeps that it’s on, facing the river, I give Tobias the thumbs up and head down.

As I descend, Tobias tells me about a time Aria visited with food and a thousand-piece jigsaw of Mount Everest. He flipped it only four times before she decided it was best to do something else. He regrets it and wishes he’d had more patience.

He completely ignores my struggle when a branch snaps beneath me, and I grab on to other branches for dear life. He’s leaning on the trunk, ankles crossed, continuing to reminisce while I try not to die.

He huffs when he finally notices me dangling and helps me back down, and I feel ten times safer when my feet touch the forest floor.

He pulls a branch from my hair, flicks it aside and says, “Let’s go.”

“Where to next?” I ask, trying to keep up with him. I’m out of breath from climbing, and he’s soldiering on like I’m a nuisance child who won’t hurry up.

He can climb the next goddamn tree.

We walk around the lodge to place more hidden cameras and end up thirty minutes into the forest, his paranoia amping up as we set up another six along the way – all on lower branches or in bushes that require no climbing. Bernadette knows where we are – she sent Kade to shoot me after all – so why isn’t she here? It’s the biggest question mark above our heads. Her daughter died – it’s obvious Kade killed her, since it’s his bullet in her skull. Bernadette will know.

She’ll know.

It makes me feel uneasy, waiting for her move. Hence all the cameras.

Barry said he’d get someone to do it, but me and Tobias needed a breather, and he wanted to talk to me about Kade’s current mental state.

It’ll take time until he breaks through, and we’re all willing to wait – to help him every step of the way. We all love him, and the struggles he’s going through won’t break him. We’ll make sure of it.

I’ll spend the rest of my life by his side, even if he can barely look at me, register that I’m sitting beside him or speak to me. I’ll hold his hand when he needs me to. I’ll just… be there.

Always.

Kyle took Chris’s body and buried him in the middle of the forest before going home.

My brother did give me a cuddle before he left and begged me not to be a stranger. Told me that whenever I need him, he’s only a phone call away. He apologised for everything, and promised he’ll make sure no trouble comes to us from Chris.

Tobias didn’t shake his hand when he held it out to him, but my brother understood. Kyle lived in the same house as me for years and knew his brother was obsessed with me. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t catch on to how obsessed he was. But Tobias sees it differently.

Losing my daughter was the beginning of the end. And it was all because of Chris.

I always wonder what life would’ve been like for me and Kade if I’d given birth. If we had our daughter, Milo and Hopper, and the house he said he wanted to build for us.

We were so close to having it all.

But then I think of his current state, and my heart shatters piece by piece.

He’s been sweating. A lot. And he’s got aches everywhere. He won’t eat and keeps being sick – is barely drinking water. Aria said that if he makes no improvement today, she’ll either get her doctor friends to the lodge or take him to a hospital.

But that also comes with a risk.

When I woke earlier, he freaked out and covered his eyes, repeatedly telling himself to snap out of it. He only calmed when I sat on the opposite side of the room and played music from Tobias’s phone.

Chris took mine, and I’ve no idea where it is. Kade broke his to stop Bernadette from hearing him apologising to me. Barry got us burners, but I haven’t used mine much.

I was able to speak to Tylar briefly earlier – she and Dez are still travelling. Her parents had an open day for one of their designs in Rome. She’s happy, and she and Dez are having a blast. I have no reason to tell her what’s happening at home and ruin the bubble she’s in.

However, she did say Dez has been trying to reach out to his friends, but since he’s not getting any replies, he assumes they’re also living their lives the way he is and can’t wait to see them when they arrive back in Scotland in three months.

Kade’s asleep right now. He did come out of his room, but Tobias had to tackle him to the ground, because he thought he was being held against his will.

Hallucinations. They’re destroying Kade.

Tobias has removed anything dangerous from his room, just in case he tries to kill himself, and we’ve been taking turns sitting outside his door when he breaks down and wrecks the place.

Once Tobias and I cross one of the wider streams, soaking our shoes, we open the bag and grab another two cameras. “I’m not climbing that,” I say, looking up at the tree. “It’s your turn to risk your life.”

He sighs. “You’re very dramatic.”

I want to slap him.

Barry calls Tobias and asks if all the cameras are in place yet so he can program them all to his laptop. They bicker then eventually hang up, and Tobias looks at me. “Why are you smiling?”

“You said goodbye without following up with an insult. That’s progress for your two’s future bromance.”

“Fuck off.”

I laugh. “Are you going to climb it or are you going to make me?”

He folds his arms. “For your attitude, you can do it.”

“Why do I waste my time with you?”

“Because your dad is dead and I’m the replacement?”

Rolling my eyes, I grab a camera and start climbing.

We walk towards the lodge once we’re finished. “What time does Luciella get here?”

Tobias smiles, his entire expression changing. “She lands at seven. Barry suggested the driver bring her here instead of me picking her up.” He shakes his head. “Asshole.”

“He doesn’t want you getting caught. I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long, to be honest. You aren’t worried you’ll get caught?”

“Nope. I’m good at hiding.” He smirks and nudges me with his elbow, nearly knocking me off my feet. “Not even the law can keep me from Aria.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you two? When I used to visit, you said you were done because Kade told you to stay away from her. And now you’re all over each other like teenagers. I…” I grimace. “I walked in on you two on the couch the other day. Wanted to bleach my eyeballs.”

Not that I have any problem with them being that way. I just don’t want him to get hurt. She’s married to Ewan, and he’s a wanted criminal who broke out of his mental institution.

The perfect match made in hell.

Chewing his lip, he sighs. “I haven’t been free for a long time. All I know is Aria. Every morning I wake up, I wonder if she’ll visit me. I’ll reread all her letters. I’ll brush my teeth and imagine she’s doing hers right beside me. When I sleep, I can smell her shampoo, and if I really try, I can almost hear her giggle in the middle of the night. Now I don’t need to imagine it all.”

I stare at him, feeling somewhat emotional as he gets annoyed with himself.

He shakes his head. “It’s pathetic, I know, but I can’t help it. I did a lot to her when we were younger. I fucked up so many times, yet she’s still here. Did I tell you I locked her in the bathroom and tried to blow her house up with us both inside?”

My eyes bulge. “You didn’t.” Some details were kept out of the reports. “That’s kind of messed up.”

“An hour before, I was fully prepared to hand myself in to the cops for her. But I blacked out, and apparently I did a lot of fucked-up shit. Felt like I didn’t wake up for months.”

“She forgave you,” I say. “She also told you to stop talking about the past, did she not?”

“I know,” he replies. “It’s weird though, right? How a man at my age is still fucking obsessed with a woman he’s been crazy about since he was in his early twenties?”

“Psychotic actually,” I say with a smirk.

“Shut up.”

My shoulder raises. “And Ewan?”

“He understands. Me and Aria never planned on getting physical together, but Ewan felt his relationship was falling apart and wanted to fix it. He was the one who suggested he watch…” He looks at me, seeing my flattening lips; I’m silently begging him not to go into detail. “Anyway, look, they’re happier than ever.”

I glance down the hill into the lodge to see Aria smiling at her husband as they talk, the other window showing Barry on the phone, probably to his Lisa and Eva, and Jason smoking on the patio. He looks more tired than me. Jason doesn’t really speak, unless he’s talking to Kade through the door about how nervous his little brother was to take his driving test and when they used to go fishing out in the loch. He keeps going until the banging inside stops, and Kade’s breakdown subsides into a deep sleep once more.

“I was never supposed to be here,” Tobias continues, helping me down the steep, muddy slope. “I actually asked for the death penalty ten years into my sentence, but Aria fought it until it was thrown out. I was insane and suicidal, they ruled; not capable of making a rational request.”

I frown. “You wanted to die?”

“Doing the same thing every single day wasn’t a life I wanted to live. I won’t return to the institution. I’d rather hide forever, but I couldn’t ask that of Aria and my kids. Death has always been my end goal.”

I stop walking and grab his arm. “What are you saying?”

Tobias gives me a half-smile – his son’s with matching dimples denting. “I think you know what I’m saying.”

“You’re going to go after Bernadette and Archie once Lu is back and Kade is better, aren’t you? It’s suicide. They have a goddamn fortress and unlimited security.”

“I managed to save you, didn’t I?”

“This is not the same. You’re not rescuing anyone. You’re saying you’re going to kill the woman who runs Scotland. Her and her husband are vile and corrupt and deep in the underworld. Are you insane?”

“Yes,” he replies bluntly.

“Tobias…”

He pinches the bridge of his nose for a second and drops his hand. “Look what they’ve done to my son. They tried to sell you and my daughter. Of course I’m going to avenge you all.” He throws his arm over my shoulders and directs us to the patio. “I would do anything to protect my people, little one.”