Stolen

Chapter Nineteen

Knox

Every muscle in my body ached as I took my familiar seat on the hard ground outside of Ember's room. I told myself that this was only temporary. I was only going to do this until I was sure she was safe. But the truth was that I had to pay the guards to let me be the one that was here because I needed to be near her. The soft sounds of her steady breathing that drifted out from beneath her door every night as she slept was the only thing that calmed my nerves. I stretched my arms over my head in an attempt to ease the soreness as a familiar face rounded the corner.

"Fuck." I said under my breath.

Rhett had spotted me before I'd ever seen him and he was making a direct line towards me. Groaning, I pushed myself up off of the floor to face him.

"What the hell are you doing!" He kept his voice hushed but there was no mistaking the anger that radiated off of him, "Where are her guards?"

I had been intentionally avoiding him since that day in the library. He'd told me then to stay away from her. "She needs space and time." He'd claimed, "Let her figure this out on her own and maybe she'll come back." He didn't understand that I couldn't take that risk. What if she never came back? What if she hated me forever? No, I had to do something. Even if she never looked at me the way that she did before, at least right now she could stand next to me without flinching. That was progress and I would gladly give her the space to figure this out as long as she knew that I was there when she needed me. I didn't regret anything I'd done or said to her in that library.

"I am her guard," I said plainly, forging boredom in this conversation.

 A fire lit Rhett from the inside out, "You are not, you have one hand and you're not thinking straight. I ordered a new guard to stand outside of this door every night until Carrson is found. Where. Are. They." He separated the words as he gritted his teeth together. Tension in his jaw that he was trying to control.

I flexed my bad hand. The healers had done wonders in fixing the shattered bones but it didn't alleviate the ghost pain lingering in the joints. It would take another week before that was gone. But the hand was not going to stop me from keeping Ember safe.

"I paid them off. She's safest with me." 

Rhett looked as if he might literally explode, "Knox, are you insane? I understand that you loved her but that's not her anymore. She doesn't remember you and all you are doing is torturing yourself! If he comes back for her and finds you here, he will kill you both." There was so much fear in his voice that I almost buckled under the weight of it. Rhett was only trying to keep us all safe. I understood where he was coming from but I couldn't budge on this. His sense of duty was outweighing his heart.

"I'm dead without her." I admitted. I'd felt it the moment she had been taken. When I sensed her in the darkness and heard the first alarm, all the light in my world had gone with her. I couldn't risk not being with her if Carrson came back for her.

Rhett took my words in but I could see it on his face that he wasn't going to let this go. He would not let me keep forcing myself back into her life. Maybe he was right. Maybe I did need to give her space. The hole in my chest where her tether used to be ached softly and I knew that he was wrong. She needed me just as much as I needed her.

"Give me until graduation." I pleaded with him, "If she hasn't remembered anything by then...I'll do it your way."

Rhett scoffed, "After graduation you'll out rank me and do whatever the hell you want anyways."

I smirked at him, "Maybe, but this would be a lot easier if you were on my side here."

Rhett rolled his eyes at me, "Don't let Maya catch you out here or she'll skin us both alive."