safety, but he didn’t have any concerns about the consequences of that action. It would never come back and bite him in the ass.
Maybe I really didn’t understand what I was dealing with.
“We’ll leave tomorrow. Sleep on the floor if you want—but there are beds upstairs.” He got to his feet and picked up his bowl.
I stayed in front of the fire.
He walked away into the kitchen.
I stared at the flames for a moment longer before I went after him.
He rinsed out his dish then left it in the bottom of the sink. “How are we getting there? There’s no car.”
“Horse.”
“All the way to Paris?” I asked incredulously. I had no idea where I was, but I knew we were nowhere near the city.
“To the place where I store my car.”
“And what will happen to the horse?”
“I’ll leave her there until I come back.”
“Are you going to return to the camp with two horses?”
He turned around and leaned against the counter as he stared at me. “Why are you asking so many questions about this?”
“Because I don’t want Rose to go back. And if you do bring her back, they’ll know you helped me. So, what are you planning to do with her?”
He shrugged. “Not sure.”
I loved that horse and felt weird parting with her. She was my friend. “Can I keep her?”
He regarded me with a cold stare. “You said you live in an apartment.”
“I can rent her a place with a stable.”
“That’s expensive.”
I didn’t have much money to begin with. “I just…can’t say goodbye.”
He pushed off the counter with his hips and sighed. “What if I keep her?”
“This is no place for a horse. There’s no fence.”
“I have other residences.”
Residences? As in plural? “Do you already own horses?”
He nodded.
“But then I’ll still never see her…”
“But you’ll know she’s taken care of. Isn’t that enough?”
Rose had carried me away from that terrible place and got me to safety. She became my friend. I didn’t want her to be sold to some stranger, I didn’t want her to return to the camp, I wanted her to have a good life…with lots of oats. “You’ll take good care of her?”
He nodded. “I will.”
“Okay.” I turned back to the foyer, still unable to believe that I was leaving tomorrow. I should be more excited, but I started to fear what he had said, that there was nothing I could for the others.
He came up behind me and headed to the stairs. He stopped and turned to me, like he knew I had something else to say.
“My sister…” I knew I couldn’t ask him for anything, not after everything he’d already done for me. I should just be grateful I’d escaped. Melanie got us into this mess in the first place, so it was entirely her fault. But her mistake didn’t deserve an eternal punishment. She didn’t deserve to belong to someone else, to be an animal in a cage. “Please.”
“How dare you ask me that, after everything I sacrificed for you.” He stared me down coldly, no longer looking at me the way he used to, like there was always a subtle hint of affection behind his cold stare. But that whisper of warmth was nowhere to be found.
“She’s my sister. I can’t just go back to life and forget about her.”
“You’re going to have to.”
“Please—”
“No.” He raised his voice, the sound reverberating off the walls. “Don’t ask me again.”
20
Paris
We left the chateau on horseback.
I sat behind him on Rose, and we made the trek down the path, moving through the countryside in a direction only he seemed to know. We hadn’t said much to each other after our contentious conversation the night before.
My feelings toward him were conflicted. On the one hand, he was the man who saved me, he was the man who risked everything to get me out of there, who had goodness inside his soul when the others didn’t. But on the other hand, he wouldn’t do more than that. He would return to that cabin like nothing happened.
After a few hours in the countryside, we approached a small house. It was a single story, almost like a shack, and it had a small stable there. There was a garage, where his car must be hidden. He put Rose in the stable then grabbed his backpack.
I stared at her, knowing I would never see her again. “Thanks for everything, Rose…” I stood in front of her and rubbed her snout, let her lick my face like she knew