Page 73 of Collateral Damage
Don’t start it yet. The second I turn this engine over, the world explodes. The roar will carry across the clearing. He’ll hear it.
I’m ready to move the millisecond the pistons fire. No hesitation. The only advantage left is that he thinks I’m already dealt with.
I check the throttle with my good hand. Find the brake. Run through it once. Twice. A drop of blood hits the concrete with a faint tap.
It doesn’t matter. What matters is the thirty seconds between ignition and exit.
Thirty seconds.
I can wait thirty seconds.
I just don’t know if she has that long.
Ava
I adjust my position on the sofa. Unhurried. Natural. Like someone getting comfortable for a lengthy chat. But my palms are slick against the cushion, and the firelight feels suddenly too bright, exposing every tremor I’m trying to hide.
The satellite phone sits eight feet away. Nine, possibly. A black plastic stone on the floor.
"How long have you been inside my house?"
A flicker crosses his expression. Satisfaction—the smugness of a predator who’s finally been noticed.
"Just over a month." He sips from his mug. My mug. The one Silas handed me this morning. "Your security system could use an upgrade."
My insides hollow out. The tea he forced me to drink turns to acid in my throat.
"He wrecked everything," he says with something like regret. "I had a plan," he waves the mug vaguely, the ceramic clinking against his ring, "I wanted to maintain proximity until the time was right."
The words maintain proximity, crawl down my spine like a line of ice.
"So…" His lips curl upward. "How is your mother? She really didn’t look well when I saw her last.”
The floor seems to tilt. The sturdy log walls of the cabin feel like they’re closing in, exhaling the scent of damp wool and his breath.
His smile returns, gentler now. "We should deliver yellow roses to her. She loves them."
My lungs seize. “You have no right to talk about my mother,” I say. My voice is a thin wire, vibrating with a terror I can't suppress. “You are not a part of my life.”
He tilts his head. “No? You talked about me once.”
“I have never?—”
“Not directly.” He shrugs slightly. “But it was close.”
A cold sweat breaks across my ribs.
“You were sitting in your car outside Greenfield,” he continues conversationally. “Three Thursdays ago. Crying. You stayed there a while before you drove home.”
The memory hits like a punch to the solar plexus. I had been crying. I remember the rhythmic thwack of the wipers and the feeling of absolute, safe isolation. But he was there. Watching me break down through the glass.
“You said you were tired of doing everything alone,” he says quietly. He smiles, gentle and certain. “I knew then you were ready for me to move in.”
“That wasn’t about you.” The words are a frantic defense, a desperate attempt to take back my privacy. Outside the care home, asking God for help. And he was there. Listening in on a conversation meant for Heaven.
He smiles faintly. “You thought it wasn’t.”
He's unhinged. This isn’t a debate. No reasoning applies. No conversational path leads to comprehension. We occupy different realities. In his mind, I wanted him to find me.
