ONE SEVENTY THREE

I could feel the anger bubbling up inside me, but it wasn’t just anger—it was something colder, something deeper, like a slow burn spreading through my veins. There she was, on the screen, her face plastered all over national TV, pretending to be some kind of hero, a fucking martyr. The two-faced bitch. I could barely stand to look at her. Clarissa. She was up there, spewing lies like she was the one who had been wronged, the one who had suffered. I couldn’t help myself. My finger shot out, jabbing at the screen like it was somehow going to make her disappear. "That’s her," I spat, my voice low but venomous. "That’s the bitch who attacked us at the school when we went to take Adam."

Dominic was still sitting there, at the edge of the armrest close to the TV, his eyes locked on the screen, but he wasn’t reacting. Not really. He was just watching, like he didn’t see the same thing I was seeing. He didn’t get it. He didn’t feel it. Not yet.

I stormed up to the screen, my heart pounding in my chest, my hands trembling. It was like my body was moving on its own, driven by pure rage. I pointed again, harder this time. "That’s the fucking woman who attacked us when we were trying to get Adam out of the school. The one that stabbed Tina."

But Dominic didn’t get it. Not yet. He stood there, confused, staring at the TV like it hadn’t clicked in his head. And then—bam—something shifted. His face didn’t change much, but his eyes… his eyes went wide. It was like a lightbulb flicked on.

"Wait," he muttered, his voice rough, barely above a whisper. "That’s her? The one from the school?"

I nodded, my chest tight, the words coming out more clipped now. "Yeah. That’s her. The one who attacked us while we were getting Adam out."

Dominic’s gaze flicked back to the screen, then back to me, then back to the TV. His lips parted like he was going to say something, but then he just stopped. His jaw clenched, and I could see his mind working, putting the pieces together. He was still trying to wrap his head around it.

For a moment, he didn’t say anything. He just stared at her—Clarissa, this fake woman who had been lying to us, manipulating us the whole time. And then, it clicked for him. His eyes widened, and I saw the recognition hit him hard. His expression shifted, like everything he thought he knew about this situation had just been turned on its head.

“That is her.”

Dominic’s voice was low, almost stunned. But I didn’t let the shock settle in. I couldn't. If I did, the crushing weight of everything would pin me down and I wouldn't get back up.

I hesitated for just a second, swallowing against the knot forming hard in my throat. Then the words just tumbled out, raw and unfiltered. I hadn’t mentioned to Dominic how I escaped from the station. 

"Adeline," I said, my voice barely above a whisper at first. "She was the one who came to get me from the police station."

Dominic’s head snapped up from the screen so fast it was a fucking miracle he didn’t give himself whiplash. His eyes locked onto mine, searching, probing, almost desperate.

I saw it, the flicker of hope, like a lighter sparking in the dark.  Motherfucker.

It nearly broke something in me, the way he looked at me. Like just the mention of Adeline—his past, his fucking whatever the hell she was to him—ignited something still raw and unfinished inside him. I was jealous, that wasn’t hard to admit. 

But I shoved the ache down. Hard. Like everything else lately.

"I didn’t exactly..." I exhaled, trying to steady myself, "I didn’t exactly tell you how I got out of being detained."

He was already frowning before I finished speaking, the air crackling with a tension that wasn’t just about what was blaring from the television anymore.

"You didn’t," he said, voice rough, but there wasn’t anger there. Just... confusion. Frustration. “But to be fair,” he added after a second, running a hand through his hair, “we haven’t exactly had time to sit around and hold fucking conversations.”

I huffed out a laugh, sharp and humorless, because he wasn’t wrong.  "No, we haven’t," I muttered, hugging my arms tighter around myself.

The news kept droning in the background, Clarissa’s blonde head bobbing behind the podium, a microphone clipped neatly to her fucking designer jacket. She looked so official it made me want to smash something.

"And to reiterate," the news anchor’s crisp voice carried into the room, "the child, Adam, ten years old, was kidnapped from his elementary school yesterday. Authorities are desperately working alongside the boy’s foster parents, who plead for the safe return of their baby boy."

I could hear the click of the photo slideshow starting behind Clarissa’s speech, Adam’s school picture flashing across the screen, all innocent smiles and bright eyes.

Goddamn it. My gut twisted.

"They’re offering a substantial reward," the anchor continued, her voice dropping into that fake-ass serious tone newscasters loved to use when they thought they were delivering heartbreaking news, "an anonymous bounty placed at over five million dollars for the safe retrieval of Adam, and for the capture of the two fugitives responsible."

The screen cut to the last footage that had been seen of I and Dominic leaving the school, a few scattered shots of us at central park. 

"They’re asking the public to report any sightings immediately," the anchor pressed on, "and caution that the suspects are armed and dangerous."

Dominic let out a low breath, something close to a growl rumbling deep in his chest, and I didn’t blame him. They had painted us as monsters, fucking demons. And the worst part? Most of the world would believe it. Because it was easier to believe that two strangers kidnapped a kid than to think for one second that the real monsters were the ones waving microphones around and smiling for the cameras.

My stomach flipped, bile crawling up my throat. I swallowed it back down.

"I didn’t tell you," I said again, voice cracking slightly, getting back to our conversation, "because... because I didn’t fucking know what was real anymore."

He stared at me like he wanted to say something. Maybe apologize. Maybe scream. Maybe tear down the whole goddamn wall. But he stayed quiet, his face shuttered, his jaw flexing like he was holding himself together with sheer will.

"And Adeline," I continued bitterly, forcing myself to keep my voice steady even though I felt like I was unraveling, "She came there to save me, but,” I hesitated, “Adeline is working with Vaughn, Dominic."

Dominic stared at me like he wanted to say something. Maybe apologize. Maybe scream. Maybe rip the fucking walls down with his bare hands just to vent out the violence boiling inside him. But he didn’t. He stayed frozen, standing there with his fists clenched at his sides, his chest heaving like he was trying to keep the whole goddamn world from crumbling down around him. His jaw twitched hard enough I thought it might snap clean off. His green eyes — those eyes that used to look at me like I was the best fucking thing he’d ever seen — were burning now. Flickering between betrayal, confusion, grief. He didn’t know which feeling to grab onto. Didn’t know if he should rage or collapse or run or fight. And for once, Dominic — ruthless, brutal Dominic — looked lost.

“But, Bunny—” he rasped, and my chest cracked open wide at the sound of it. The way he said it. Like he was reaching for something already dead and cold and out of reach. It hurt me too, way more than I thought it would, for Bunny to have died trying to get us to safety, betrayed by his own daughter. 

And over the past few days after finding out what side Adeline was on, I had never thought of how Dominic would feel knowing about this. 

I flinched, biting the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper. Fuck, I thought. This is going to destroy him.

"I don’t know when," I said, the words punching out of me like I was being stabbed from the inside out, "I don’t know when Adeline started working with him. I don’t know why."

Dominic opened his mouth again like he wanted to protest, to call me a liar, to tell me there was no fucking way the girl he used to love, the girl who probably still haunted him in his dreams, could’ve betrayed us like that. But nothing came out.
Nothing except this broken, wrecked sound in the back of his throat, like the fight was draining right out of him.

And I kept talking because if I stopped, if I paused for even a second, I was gonna shatter.

"But she is," I forced out, my throat tightening to the point it hurt to breathe. "She is, Dominic. Whether she helped kill Bunny by choice or by accident..." I blinked hard, forcing back the tears that wanted to spill. "It’s up to us now."

I saw the moment those words gutted him. Saw the way his face twisted, like I had ripped out his fucking soul with my bare hands and left him standing there, empty.
His hands shook. His shoulders sagged. His head bowed like he couldn’t bear to meet my eyes anymore.

He didn’t need to say anything. I could feel it.  He was mourning Bunny all over again. Mourning Adeline. Mourning every scrap of good left inside him that still wanted to believe in people.

"I was taken," I whispered, barely recognizing my own voice. It sounded so small, so hollow. "Adeline claimed to have come to rescue me from the cops, and they took me to a facility. Clarissa runs the place."

Dominic didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. He just stared at the TV like it was gonna suddenly give him answers, but all it showed was that fake-ass bitch smiling sweetly, talking about "peace" and "justice."

"I don’t know if she killed the real founder," I said, my hands flexing helplessly at my sides, "or just buried them somewhere. But the place... it used to be something else. Something good."

Dominic's lip curled in disgust, but he still didn’t look at me.
He didn’t have to.
I knew he was thinking it too — how anything good could be twisted into a nightmare if the wrong hands got ahold of it.

"And now?" I choked out. "Now they take girls. Hundreds. Maybe thousands." My voice cracked and dropped low, trembling. "They turn them into fucking puppets. They strip them down until there’s nothing left but what they need. What they can use."