I go silent instead, watching as if observing a stranger. This moment… It’s almost like it is happening to someone else. Another woman who doesn’t seem to care as a thug swipes his thumb against her bare thigh. Worse, she bites her lip, alarmed by her own reaction to him. A scream isn’t the sound she’s choking back. A gasp slips out regardless, and he travels higher, dragging up her skirt with every dangerous inch gained.
Higher.
Higher…
“Hannah?” A knock on the door shatters the moment—almost too surreal to be happening. But no. It is. Dazed, I gape at the door, spotting a familiar figure peering through the glass. “Hannah? You in here?”
“I have to go.” I lunge for my bag and trip, landing hard on my knee. The pain has me gritting my teeth, but the stabilizing force on my arm withdraws. When I turn around, he’s already gone, disappearing down the side hall that leads to the back entrance of the store.
“Hannah?” Liam tries the door handle this time.
I stagger to my feet and snatch my bag, practically racing through the door before he can come in. I nearly run into his chest, forcing him to grab my shoulders just to steady me.
“Whoa! Where’s the fire?” He smiles, his expression warm.
I can barely muster up a grin in return, and the expression slips the second I spot a figure melding into the crowd paces ahead. He doesn’t look back, his posture proud, movements leisurely. As if I don’t exist.
Even as his heat still radiates through my skin.
“Hannah?” Liam waves his hand in front of my face until I turn my attention to him. “You ready to go?”
“Y-Yeah.” I lock the shop door and allow him to lead me down the opposite street.
“How about we get out of this neighborhood for a while?” he suggests, and I trip over the curb. The language is distinctly Branden’s. Does it bother me to know that he set this up, weaseling his way into my life even while miles away?
If it does, I can’t tell.
I’m too numb to.
Chapter Eight
Liam takes me to a café in a slightly more upscale part of town. The artsy, rustic scene for rich kids getting their art degrees while renovating old houses on their parents’ dime. It’s the kind of place my parents assumed I’d move to, but Branden always hated.
I try to push him from my mind as we grab lunch at a small, cozy café where the pleasant beige walls and bright lighting reduce everything else to a distant memory.
“So, what made you come here?” Liam asks. He’s still in uniform, catching odd looks, though our booth is at the back of the shop and mostly out of sight. “All the way from Pennsylvania?”
“Branden asked me to,” I blurt out, only to realize that he didn’t mean “here” literally. Here, as in far from home, in a strange city that I moved to on a desperate whim and a vain quest for freedom. “I liked the English lit program at the college,” I quickly say, my go-to response to similar questions.
He chuckles. “Your brother makes your hometown sound like something out of a storybook. I’m surprised you left.”
I had to. But I don’t say as much out loud, squirming in my seat as sweat dribbles down my neck. Is this a test? Branden’s way of ensuring his hold on me lasts, no matter who I’m with… Though he isn’t the only reason I’m on edge. The truth is something I’ve learned to smother and obscure. It’s the only way to live with it.
But for one little second…
The pain hits me like a sucker punch, wholly unexpected. Do I miss my old home? More than anything. At least the memory of it, how it used to be before the chaos and the pain and the darkness that drove us both away.
“I’m sorry,” Liam says, frowning. He fumbles for a napkin from a dispenser in the center of the table and hands it to me. Only now do I realize that my cheeks are wet. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.” I smile wide to prove it, though my lips tremble at the corners.
“At least you have Branden,” he points out. “That’s one hell of a big brother who would move all the way out here just to keep an eye on you. I’m not sure I’d do that for one of my kid sisters.”
His smile is so painfully genuine. He really means it.