In front of me, my phone started vibrating, its face glowing in the dimness of the room—now that I was more awake, I could hear rain, which explained the post-sunrise gloom. I stared at the phone, the light eerie. It took me a long time to push my head up enough to even bother looking at the number. By the time I did, the screen had gone dark.
I was about to put my head back down when it lit up again. The number had a 540 area code. Local. Maybe it was Hart calling from the Sheriff’s Office. Or Noah, from jail.
I swiped the phone. “Hello?” I sounded like shit.
The voice that answered me was one I never thought I’d hear again. “Seth, are you okay? You sound like shit.”
I burst into tears. Thick, heavy sobs that were the result of stress and relief.
“Baby, baby…”
I was crying too hard to say anything.
“Baby, please talk to me.”
“They—they told me you—” A sob choked me before I could finish it.
“Oh,fuck,” he breathed. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I called as soon as I got here.”
“Where’s here?” I asked him, wiping my nose on my arm because I didn’t have anything better.
“Helen and Ray’s,” he answered. “I might have gotten a little… lost trying to get here.” He paused for a moment. “I’ll ask Helen come get you,” he said, then.
“Hart and I will come to you,” I told him, interrupting the breath he’d drawn.
“Wait, why the fuck isValthere? Not that I won’t be glad to see him, but?—”
“Elliot, they told me you weredead,” I blurted. “What the fuck did you think I was going to do?Notcall him?”
He went silent for a moment. “Theywho?”
“The Sheriff’s Department,” I replied. “The carburned up?—”
“Yeah, because heshotit.” It was Elliot’s turn to interrupt me.
“Shotit?!” I repeated. “Who shot it? Why was anyoneshooting at my car?!”
“The cop,” Elliot replied. “But I wasn’t really trying to get a good look at him, because he wasshooting at the car I’d just gotten out ofafter he’d fuckingrun me off the goddamn road.”
“Thesheriffran you off the road?”
“I don’t know if it was the sheriff or a deputy or some other fucker in the car,” he replied, agitated. “But it was some asshole in a uniform with a gun, and I was trying not to get shot.”
“And I thought you weredead!”
“I called as soon as I got to a phone!” he retorted. “I’m sorry you worried.”
“Worried?Worried?!Being told you weredeadis well fucking beyondworried.” I wasn’t being rational about this, and I knew it. But I couldn’t stop the words. I’d spent the last thirteen or so hours believing I would never see him again, never hear his voice, never feel his hands on my skin, and I didn’t think I was doing too terrible a job of holding it together.
I hadn’t screamed incoherently even once.
“Baby—”
“I’msorry,” I interrupted him yet again. “I’m just… so fucking relieved that you’re alive, and angry that someone tried to kill youagain, and exhausted, and?—”
“Baby.” This time his voice was gentle, tender. “It’s okay. I’m alive, I promise. And Helen and Ray are taking good care of me…”
“You need taking care of?” Anxiety immediately spiked again.
