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from Annie's Karma
Prologue
“Okay. This is the last
of the boxes. Now we can get out of this hell-hole.”
“Uh-huh.” Annie
kept her back to him so he couldn’t see the tears on her cheeks.
“Hey, are you
okay?” Dave put the box down and went to her. He put his arms around her middle
and gently pulled her back against him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” She turned
in his arms and wrapped her arms around his waist. “It’s stupid. I haven’t been
living here for months… and I certainly wasn’t happy in this place.” She buried
her face against his chest.
Dave could only
remember that Annie almost died here. He glanced over her head and noted the
bare walls and the hollow vacancy in front of him. Still, this had been her
home and he had to remind himself of that. At some point he hoped she felt
happy about moving in to this house, he wondered if she would ever remember
that joy.
“I bet you had
dreams, though, when Scott and you first moved in here.”
She shrugged in
his embrace. “I used to be naïve.”
Dave felt only
anger towards Scott and sadness for Annie. He hoped, sooner rather than later,
that he could return some of that innocence to her. Sometimes Dave wondered if
he could have lived with himself, if Annie would ever have forgiven him, if he
had made sure that Scott hadn’t lived to go to trial, but that wasn’t the kind
of law enforcement officer and not the kind of man he was. He only hoped
that Annie could love him for that. He held her just a little bit tighter.
“I hope the next
person who lives here makes it into a real home.” Annie sniffled and backed out
of his arms. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be whiny.”
“You’re not being
whiny.” He reached out and caught her chin with his fingertips. He tilted her
face up to look at him and shrugged. “That’s beautiful of you to wish someone
else happiness, especially someone you don’t know,” He narrowed his eyes, “Or
do you?”