A Slave to Broken Hearts (A Slave to Love Sequel)

Chapter 82: Kindred Spirits

The first step to thwarting a stalker, supernatural or other? Change your routine. Or so Blade kept reminding me while we hashed out our tentative plans last night.

So first thing in the morning, I texted Ace.

I told him I'd been bumped from my flight and rescheduled for one the next day instead. He found this incredibly rude of the company considering the lack of warning, but I assured him it was fine; one extra day lounging at home was alright with me, not only that, but they were even offering a credit towards future flights for the inconvenience, which would be oh so handy when I came back at Christmas to see my mom. I wasn't even missing work either; I'd had the foresight to keep an extra day off just in case of emergency. Everything worked out perfectly!

All of it was a lie, except for the part about work, but we needed to buy time.

I texted Katie for added measure, letting her know I'd be home later than expected and would keep her posted, but offered no further details. She must have been busy with Noah or something because she didn't even open it, which was better for me. The less lying I had to do, the less I had to worry about remembering so I didn't blow my own cover.

Fortunately, Blade's lack of communication and penchant for privacy worked in our favor. He hadn't told anyone about his trip, figuring someone would spill the beans to me or try to stop him. Jordan and Leo were accustomed to him disappearing for periods of time with no warning, even Lexi knew this, as annoying as she found it. So had she dropped by to check-in and not found him at home, it wouldn't be a surprise nor would it be suspicious. He had continued taking Talia's calls so they had signs of life and had told no one he was here, so the minimal contact was doing its job in keeping his cover. To them, he was his usual self; moody and ignoring almost all contact while off brooding in some isolated corner no one would find. No one knew or would ever assume he was here with me.

Since nothing had occurred while we were here, that we had noticed anyway, it was safe to assume whoever it was had probably seen me going home as a week long vacation and hadn't tailed us or known we were together. So we were going to take the risk and operate under that assumption, at least for the time being, while it still benefited us.

We wrote nothing down, leaving nothing to chance. We had discussed everything at length, all last night and this morning, until we were both so wound up I didn't even want any coffee. The adrenaline was doing wonders for my lack of sleep. And for my shaking hands.

As we waited for the cab to arrive to pick us up, Blade stood in front of me by the door with our bags, rubbing the goosebumps away from my arms as soothingly as he could, but I could feel his stress like a tangible cloud on the air. 

The yellow cab rolled up my street and Blade's eyes met mine, mirroring my fear and stress and the desperate desire to run and hide before whoever it was found us again and we were stuck in a life that wasn't real with no way out. 

"If anything goes wrong, anything feels weird at all, summon me," he said, hands still on my upper arms, fingers digging painfully into my flesh, like he was terrified to let me go, to walk out that door to face the complete and utter unknown. "I don't fucking care what it is. I don't care if it's just because you're just scared and want out. Call it and it's done. We'll hide somewhere. Anywhere."

I nodded, incapable of saying anything when I was shaking so hard. The cab driver honked as they parked outside and fear struck me, cold and clammy and fast, like I was teetering on the edge of a crumbling cliffside with nothing to hold onto and someone was prowling close, ready to push me off the second I turned my back. 

He yanked me into him, crushing me to him tight and I nearly broke then, so close to telling him I wanted to run and forget about all our plans, just hide and pray whoever it was wouldn't find us. All our preparing, all our rehashing, and I still felt like I was going in blind, like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, knowing exactly how disastrous the ending would be and how insane it was, yet doing it all the same.