Unwanted Blood (Harper) novel Chapter 68

Chapter 68

I put the folder back exactly where I found it. Closed the box. Pressed the latch until it clicked- the same half-click position it had been in before.

I didn’t take anything. If a single document was missing, Adrian would know. And I wasn’t ready for him to know I’d been here.

I slipped back through the window, dropped into the garden, and moved through the blind spots back to my room.

My hands didn’t stop shaking until I was under the covers.

–

At 6:00 a.m, I woke up before the alarm. Dressed. Packed a single bag-jeans, two shirts, my phone, the notebook where I’d been writing things down since I arrived.

I sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

I didn’t text anyone. I didn’t know if I was actually going to leave. But at least now I knew where the last piece was. And I knew it existed.

Potassium chloride. Written in a doctor’s hand. In a folder in a sealed box in a locked building guarded by men who thought I was already gone.

After an hour, a knock on my door. Then it was opened.

Adrian was standing there. He was dressed-clean shirt, jacket, hair combed. He looked like he’d been awake for hours. His eyes went to my bag, then to my face, and something complicated passed across his expression before he smoothed it away.

“You’re ready,” he said.

“I said I would be.”

He nodded. He didn’t say anything else. Just stepped aside and gestured for me to follow.

We walked through the house in silence. Past the dining room where I’d eaten breakfast. Past the study where he’d handed me the folder and said at least this way you won’t think I’m the same as him. Past the front door, through the gate, to the car idling on the gravel driveway.

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11:41

Chapter 68

The driver held the door open

I paused. One hand on the car door, one foot on the gravel.

I turned back.

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Adrian was standing at the gate, his hands in his pockets, watching me. His face was unreadable -the same calm mask he’d worn since I’d met him. But his eyes were different today. Tired. Resigned. Or maybe just relieved.

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