Page 195 of The Professor's Wife

I’d fucking kill him if I could.

I don’t know if that makes me a worse man than I pretend to be, but it’s true. I’d imagined it more than once in the last twenty-four hours—what it would feel like to find him, to look him in the eye and make him answer for what he did to her. For what he took. Her safety. Her son. Her fucking freedom.

I’d make him eat a fucking bullet if I could.

Daisy hadn’t told me all of it. She didn’t have to. I saw it in the way she held herself, always scanning rooms like they might collapse around her. In how she didn’t even realize she was holding her breath until I touched her hand. In the way she tried to apologize for the most trivial things.

The shopping; when I had bought her things and she retreated inside herself, terrified of what it might cost her later on. When she’d torn that Seneca book apart in the bookstore, looking crazed and distraught. When she’d fled from the bar and told me she was a mother; she’d tried to push me, see just how much of what she deemed baggage I would accept.

Maybe I should have asked about her troubles sooner.

I could have dug into her a little more, been a bit more persistent. I thought I was giving her space. I didn’t want to push her, but I was starting to think my patience only ended up making her more afraid of losing what we had between us.

I fucked up.

I wouldn’t fuck up again.

I should have been focusing on the road. On getting us as far away from him as possible. If he was even there. I wasn’t sure, but the paranoia burned in my skull. This was what she wanted. But the anger sat heavily in my chest, and a big part of me still wanted to turn this van around and go hunting.

The gas light blinked on just as we rolled into a small town. A single gas station sat by the road. I pulled in slowly, careful not to wake her, but she stirred anyway.

“Where are we?” she mumbled, voice thick with sleep.

“I don’t really know. Somewhere far,” I said. “I’m just getting gas.”

She sat up, blinking at the light outside. Her eyes were glassy, lost for a moment.

“Daze?” I whispered. “Are you alright?”

She shuddered and looked down into her lap. “Nightmare.”

“What did you dream about?”

Goosebumps pebbled on her arms. “I dreamed…” She paused, her face paling as she recounted her dream. “I was in a dark place again, but this time I couldn’t move. I…I knew he was there, holding me down, forcing me to look at a…wall.” Her brows came together and then a look of panic crossed as her eyes darted to me. “You were there, but…you were watching me. Just watching.”

I swallowed hard but unease gripped me. “It was just a dream.”

She shook her head slowly. “It didn’t feel like one.”

I didn’t answer as images of her dream sprang to my mind, familiar in a way I didn’t yet understand.

Something bad is going to happen.

The thought came out of nowhere, paralyzing me in place for a solid moment.

“Tristan, are you okay?”

Daze’s voice sounded distant. I shook away the strange feeling, gruffly saying, “Yeah. Be right back.”

I stepped out and went inside the gas station. The attendant was old and tired. His eyes, heavy with bags, swung to mine. I told him the pump number. “Fifty bucks in gas.”

I slid him the money and he wordlessly put it through. I hesitated, licking my lips. “You know of any good place around here a camper can get a good shut eye in? Maybe even do some exploring?”

He took a moment. “Clearwater Nature Reserve. Good views. Long trails. Easy place to find a quiet spot.”

“Easy to find on the map?”

He nodded. “You can’t miss it.”