they did nothing. But they were out there, in the open for him to know, and I was going to stand by them. No matter what.
Finally, he dropped his head and kissed me softly. “I love you, Charlotte. You’re part of my soul, dove, and you’re so feisty now. I like it.”
I kissed him back, savouring the feel of his soft lips before saying, “You’re the only man I’ve loved, the only man I’ll ever love. You own my soul, Conor, and that’ll never change.”
And there, for a fleeting moment, I saw a little bit of light in his eyes.
THE HOLE
Max descended the steps, eyes wide, staring around the dark room. Faintly, in the distance, he could hear Conor’s voice.
43… 44… 45… 46.
He paused, wavering on the final step.
A cold chill ran down his spine. He felt his stomach tighten and his heart squeeze. Something about this felt all wrong.
There are moments.
Moments you know you should turn back.
His mother always told him to listen to his gut.
She explained to him his fear was never unfounded.
“You say you’re scared of everything,” she said, “but maybe you’re more in tune with danger than everyone else, Max. You have the gift of fear. Every day our brain catalogues our surroundings. When something is out of the ordinary, we sense it. You sense it more than most. Listen to it, Max. Always listen to your senses.”
He was sensing it now.
This suddenly didn’t seem like a good idea anymore.
His skin came alive, tingling. His heart caught in his throat, because he felt the weight of something dark settle over him.
He had to leave.
He had to leave now.
He turned around and looked up at the light flooding in, catching the briefest sight of a figure.
Of a face.
“Hey –” Max began to say just as the steel doors above him closed.
Chapter Fifteen
Thames
“Daddy,” Penny whispered, leaning into his side.
“Yeah, baby?” he said.
She darted her eyes over his head and then around them, like she was keeping a look out. They were on the living room floor, colouring books open. Charlotte had forced Penny off her Minecart/craft/crane(?) game and forced her to do something more “constructive.” Penny argued she was showing Thames her world and the little jail she’d made for him. She’d set him free days ago, and now Daddy Thames in this world was farming and mining for diamonds and shit. It was all very fucking weird.
Anyway, she’d hardly given two shits about colouring in her princess colouring book. She was constantly glancing around them before finding the courage to lean into his side.
“I want a dog,” she whispered to him. “Mom said I can have all the dogs in the world…so long as they’re in Minecraft.” She rolled her eyes the way Charlotte did when she was annoyed about something. Thames’ lips twitched, but he fought to be serious because Penny was deadly serious about this.
“I tried to tell her I don’t have a dog, I have a wolf and a llama, but the llama is going to get killed because it keeps following Kane around and not me and that’s not exceptable.” He was pretty sure she meant acceptable. “I’m also trying to tame a bear but it’s not really working out for me. So, but anyway, I was wondering if you can get me a dog and we can tame it together and stuff.”
Fucking hell, she was batting her eyelashes at him and everything. Her giant eyes drank him in with this hopeful expression. If it were up to him, Thames would have gone to a pet shop right that second and gotten her a dog and a wolf and a llama and anything else she wanted.
“I never had a dog,” he murmured in thought, considering this for a moment.
“Kane has one,” she responded. “And Lily has one too.”
“What kind of dog do you think you’d want?”
He mentally pictured Penny with a tiny Pomeranian or even a cute Chihuahua.
“I want a Pitbull,” she stated as a matter of fact. “I’m going to call her Dozer.”
A…Pitbull. Thames blinked, and then blinked some more, and then he didn’t know how many blinks had lapsed before he finally said, “I’ll talk to your mom about it.”
“But you can’t say I brought it up,” she urgently responded. “It has to come from you. She’ll do anything for you, Daddy. She waited forever for you.”
His heart thudded hard in his chest. “She did, didn’t she?”
Penny nodded. “She loves you, Daddy. Kane said so many times he wishes his mom