Just Reality

Chapter 92

I startle awake. Darkness consumes the room and I can only assume the early hour to be just that. Too early. A cold sweat takes residence on my skin, the whistling sound of the wind outside making goosebumps arise along my arms. I can't quite remember the nightmare I'd had, but I know it revolves around the same topic all of my dreams sync too. Though I know that that's not the only reason I woke up.

Things are changing. For the better, I know. Christopher was arrested and now resides in prison. God knows whether or not Brecken will resurface into the hands of Aspen and her team. And Dean. Dean...

Sloane once asked me, during a game of truth or dare, how many people I'd loved. Not just romantic love— any kind of love. At that moment I had worried that given my past and the way I'd found out about my parents' schemes, my possibilities of ever falling in love again were severed. Because if the two people in the world that mattered the most— the two people who loved me the most had been liars, what did that mean for me? Trusting anyone at all since then has been a feat hard won, but after meeting the McPhersons it gave me the hope I needed.

My answer was five.

But now?

I raise my head, peaking over my shoulder to look at the boy asleep behind me. Though locked in slumber, his arms tighten around my waist. I can't suppress the smile that graces my lips.

You want to know why you in particular scare me, Kathy? Sterlings words ring in my ears. You're the one who really feels things. You won't ever be able to stop caring. Things will always be personal.

I care about the victims we fight for. The Mackenzie McBrides and nameless women at coffee shops. I care about the people in this house— not just Dean and Maddox, but Sloane, Lia and Michael.

Sliding my eyes shut, I try to find things that can lull me back to sleep. The electricity running through the walls. The rise and fall of Deans chest against my back. Anything to silence my thoughts.

Mackenzie McBride. The girl at the coffee shop. My thoughts circle back. Why? I let my head flop back down to the side, taking steady, even breaths.

The FBI had gotten Mackenzie McBrides case wrong. The FBI had gotten the Florence case wrong. We'd missed the killers hiding in plain sight. But we haven't missed anything on this case. Christopher Simms is the villain. They caught him in the act. He had supplies in his truck— bindings for the girls ankles and wrists, a knife, the brand.

The girl at the coffee shop. That's what I keep circling back too. An uneasiness roots itself deep in my stomach. Who was Christopher's intended victim? Redding knew that someone was scheduled to die. He told us to expect it.

How do you choose who dies?

I don't.

Clark chose Emerson.

Christopher chose his mother.

Fogle was nothing but a complication that needed to be dealt with.

So who chose the girl?

There's no getting that question out of my mind. Maybe it's nothing. Nothing at all. But that doesn't stop me from attempting to carefully slip out of Deans grasp. At first he pulls me back, and it takes studious Truth Seeking to determine that he's still dormant. I sit up, checking the time on my phone. 2:04. I leave my cell there, tiptoeing out of the room. The house is silent, the sound of my footsteps nothing but small thuds as I make my way down the stairs. The door to the study —Agent Sterlings temporary lodging— is open a crack. The faint glow of lamplight coming from inside the room tells me that she isn't asleep, either.