23. Lorraine

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lorraine

“ L orraine?” Oscar asked and I froze. I sat at my kitchen table, drinking a cup of hot cocoa. Cat had just left for college, taking her books with her. She had a ton of tests today and wanted to fit in an extra cramming session at the library before she took them. “Here you are,” Oscar said, walking into the kitchen with a smile. His face was sallow, his skin pasty, and his eyes seemed sunken. He sat down next to me and planted a kiss on my cheek. I stiffened. “I was looking for you,” he said. “You’re one tough person to find.”

“I’ve been here all along,” I said. My voice was small, my fear showing through. I hadn’t seen Oscar in a while. I’d managed to avoid him until now. He’d always come close to finding me. Once, he’d found me, but… I couldn’t remember what had happened. I couldn’t remember much of anything, like how I’d gotten here. I glanced around. This was my kitchen at home, but something didn’t feel quite right about it. It was too clean, too perfect. It didn’t look lived in. It looked clinical. Staged. Oscar laughed. “Come now, we both know that isn’t true. It’s been tough to find you, but I’m getting closer, you know.”

“Are you?” I asked, my voice trembling. “I thought you were in prison.” Hadn’t Cat said something about that? Oscar laughed.

“Yeah, well, they’re only bars, babe. You know how it works. This place won’t hold me for long. I’ve been here before, but I got out, and I can do it again.”

I frowned. “You’ve been here before?”

Oscar reached for me, and I jerked back. He touched my cheek, stroking it with his thumb. His eyes were dark and menacing, but he wore a smile. Was that meant to appease me after everything he’d done? “Oh, sweetheart, you’ve always been so na?ve and so trusting. It’s what I like about you, you know. It’s a weakness, but the weak are so easy to prey on, so that suits me just fine.”

I shook my head. “Yeah, not insulting at all.” I managed to scrape together some sarcasm. I wanted him to think I wasn’t scared of him, but I wasn’t sure if I could fool him. “This place is nice,” Oscar said, looking around. I glanced around, too. We weren’t in my kitchen back home anymore. We were in the cabin in the vale, sitting on the couch together. “Oh, God,” I breathed. “I thought this place would be more archaic, but it’s pretty damn modern. Tacky, but I can see why you’d want to live here.”

I shook my head. Panic was starting to grip me, holding me tighter and tighter. It squeezed me like a boa constrictor, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. “You’re not supposed to be here,” I said. “Neither are you,” Oscar pointed out. He wasn’t wrong. “How did you find me?” I asked. “Oh, I just followed you out here.”

That didn’t make any sense. Oscar was human, and I was in a different realm, hidden by magic. He shouldn’t have been able to find me. “You didn’t,” I said. “Well, that’s true. You used to be more reluctant to catch me in a lie, always trying to find the good in me.”

“Yeah, until I realized that it doesn’t exist.”

“You’ve changed,” Oscar said. “It was about time.”

Oscar shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him whether I’d changed or stayed the same. “How did you find me?” I asked, since he hadn’t answered that question. “I just let him show me where you were. I found someone who thinks the same way I do, and that made life so much easier.”

“Who?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. Who out here would have given up my location? Everyone here knew who I was and knew that they had to keep me safe. That was why Ash had hidden me here in the first place. “If I tell you that, I’ll be giving it all away, and you can escape again,” Oscar said and made a tutting sound. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

Oscar stood, and I flinched away from him automatically. The way he’d grabbed me the last time he was here flooded back at me, my cheek throbbing where he’d been about to strike me before I’d woken up. “Come now, babe,” Oscar said, and he sounded disappointed. “I didn’t think you were that scared of me.”

“How can I ever trust you again after what you did?” I cried out. “Well… I guess you can’t, but that’s not the point. I’m not here to hurt you. At least, not yet.” He offered me a sly grin before he turned and walked to the cabin door. “Enjoy yourself while it lasts, okay? I’ll be back for you, and when that happens, there won’t be any escaping or fending for yourself or any of your weird tree men to look after you. It will be just me and you, and then you’re fucked.”

I jerked up in bed, breathing hard. “Ash?” I cried out when he wasn’t next to me. I ran my hand over the rumpled sheets, but they were cold. He’d been long gone. “Ash!” I cried out again, although I doubted he’d answer me. I was alone in the cabin.

I shivered despite the sun shining outside, despite the weather that was always perfect in the vale. I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to fend off the fear that had a death grip on me even though it had just been a dream. It hadn’t just been a dream. That was the problem. None of it was just a dream—it was real. Oscar had done something to find me, something magical even though he was human, and he was getting closer and closer. I was in trouble if I didn’t do something about it, tell someone about it. I had to figure out who was telling Oscar where to find me. It had to do with the guys who’d come for me after I’d been hiding here. Oscar’s buddies, who’d taken me as payment for his debt, had come back for me and kidnapped me when they’d finally figured out where I was. They hadn’t figured it out, though, had they? Someone had told them where to find me, and they’d failed to get me. Ash had killed them. Since they’d failed, Oscar was here to get me himself now. Whoever had helped his men was helping him, too.

I got out before, and I’ll do it again. I got colder and colder. I sank into bed, pulling the covers up to my chin, wrapping them tightly around me to combat the cold. It didn’t help—the cold came from the inside, my fear freezing me up, literally. Cat had told me Oscar was put in jail. Would he be out soon? If he was, he would come for me because somehow, he knew where I was. I was sure of it. I couldn’t assume that it was all just a dream. I had to accept that a part of it had to be real. Right? Or was my subconscious messing with me and none of this was real, none of this was true? I scrubbed my face with my hands, trying to think clearly. I couldn’t get panicked like this. I couldn’t let fear take over. My mind was playing tricks on me, and I was letting it rule me when I was safe here. The thing was, I’d been safe here before. I’d hidden here for a while, and Oscar’s men had still found me. That had been real, even though I’d never thought it possible. Was that something that would happen with Oscar, too? Would he come for me? And if he did…, what would he want with me? We were together. He’d been good to me and my sister at first, helping us through when my parents had died. Sure, he’d gambled away all the money I’d worked my ass off for as the sole provider of the family, and when he hadn’t been able to repay his debts, he’d sold me to settle them, but did that mean he didn’t love me? And what did it say about me that I even wondered that? Was I, after all, just a means to an end? The weak are so easy to prey on. Damn it, I had to talk to someone. I had to do something. “Ash!” I called out again, but I knew he wouldn’t hear me, wouldn’t come for me. He’d left, and I was alone. A part of me felt like I’d been in this alone all along. That wasn’t right—Ash had been here from the start. Right now, though, I felt more alone than I’d ever been. I closed my eyes. I wished my parents were still alive. I wished I was at home with them, a normal person living a normal life. I wished they’d never died, that I’d never had to look after everyone. I wished I’d listened to my mom about Oscar, not gone with him to the party that night, so that they wouldn’t have had to pick me up because of it. My parents would still have been alive then, and I would have been able to ask my mom for advice. Hell, there wouldn’t have been anything like this to ask her advice about. It would just be a normal life with normal, petty problems.

I knew I had to get out of bed, get dressed, and find Ash so I could talk to him about what had happened. I needed him to know that something was wrong, that I wasn’t as safe as we thought I was. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. My head ached and my eyes were so heavy, and all I wanted was to sleep a little longer. Or a lot longer.