Legions (Georgia Smoke #7)

Four

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I triggered the worst parts of him.

Capri

I drove for hours until I had no more tears to cry, and the gas tank was almost empty. I’d left my purse and cell phone behind. He’d have put trackers on more than just my phone. It was why I hadn’t taken my car but Thatcher’s. It was the least likely to have a location detector on it. Deciding to park at the grocery store parking lot and leave his car there was the safest solution.

Before today, I wouldn’t have been scared that Thatcher would hurt someone I loved to get to me. But that had been before he shot at his brother. Accepting that I hadn’t known him, not the way I thought I did, was as painful as leaving him. I didn’t see any other way, and I had tried to come up with something. Any excuse to go back to him. To make all this horror okay.

But there was none.

I left his keys under the driver’s seat and hurried back to the trail behind the store that led to the subdivision beside the church. I didn’t know how long King and the others would be able to hold him. He’d come for me when he could. If there was somewhere else to go, I would, but anywhere I went, I put others in danger. The church was the only place I could think of that wouldn’t involve someone else in Thatcher’s wrath.

Stopping once I reached the grass, I slipped off my shoes, pulled out the soles, and found what I was looking for. Popping out the air tags that Thatcher had placed inside them, I tossed the small round tracking devices deep into the woods in the opposite direction. I had never asked him if he had done this to my shoes, but after hearing the guys talk about him putting them in Sebastian’s boots, I’d guessed that mine probably had them too.

Once I was sure there were no other hidden places in my shoes, I put them back on and jogged along the path before I broke into a full run. I didn’t fear for my life when it came to Thatcher. But I knew I needed space—time to think. My heart battling with my head. What was right and what was wrong. Could I be selfish enough to stay with him, knowing that I was endangering innocent people? Those who might touch me on accident or say something to me to set him off.

It was no longer a question of if I loved him enough. It was my sanity I feared wasn’t strong enough to survive him. My lungs burned as I pushed harder. The pain welcome. I wanted to feel it. I deserved much worse. My existence had ruined lives while I had been living in my own little blissful bubble. Clueless to it all.

The sight of the church up ahead didn’t bring me peace. I’d not stepped foot inside for months. It reminded me of a chain around my ankle that I had survived and broken free from after years of imprisonment. A life I lived for others. My parents, those in the church body who expected me to act and behave a certain way, and, of course, God. To think, not so long ago, I feared telling a lie. Thinking it would send me to Hell.

If that were the worst of my sins, I’d be okay. But there was something far darker on my hands, my soul. Even if I hadn’t been the one to commit the sins. I was the reason why, and I had been too blinded by my feelings for Thatcher to see the truth surrounding him and us.

Slowing as I reached the backdoor leading into the offices, I caught my breath and stopped beside the playground storage shed. Pulling over a chair used by the preschool teachers when they brought the kids out to play, I stood on it and felt around along the outer ledge of the shed until I found the singular key hidden up there. Grasping it, I jumped down and put the chair back in its place before going to the door and unlocking it.

I slipped the key into my pocket and went inside, sure to lock the door behind me. The silence met me along with the familiar smell of floral arrangements and the furniture polish that was used weekly on the ancient pews that the older members refused to part with in exchange for more comfortable seating in the sanctuary. With a heavy sigh, I made my way to the preschool area in search of a blanket before going to the room my father used for counseling. It was the only sofa in the building and far more comfortable than the hard straight back pews.

Not that I expected to sleep. I just wanted to curl up while I worked through the torment with its constant tapping at my chest, waiting to crack it open. Slipping off my shoes, I lay down, not bothering to turn on a light in the windowless room. I preferred the darkness.

For the first time since I had run from Thatcher, I let the sound of his wounded roar replay in my head. It had almost stopped me. The pull to go to him, comfort him, had felt like an iron clamp on my heart. But the gun he’d pointed at his own brother, the bullet that had whizzed too close to Sebastian, had kept me from going back. I had to keep putting distance between us.

It was all my fault. Just like the other.

I wasn’t good for Thatcher. I didn’t make him better. I triggered the worst parts of him. My throat tightened, and my eyes stung. A sob parted my lips, and I wrapped my arms around my knees, holding them tight to my chest. Finally, I let myself completely fall apart.