I bolted upright, my fingers fumbling over the small, screaming rectangle on my nightstand until I had it firmly gripped in my hands. I flipped the small switch on the side to silence it and rolled over onto my side, my back to Keith. He shifted too, either from the noise or the light, but a second later, I heard his deep, measured breaths as he settled back into sleep.

My chest was tight, and breaths flooded out of my body in ragged, unnaturally loud spurts. I stared at the screen as it lit up the dark room. I was used to getting unknown calls, but never at this time of night—it seemed that the telemarketers knew better than that.

They wouldn’t call this late.

It had to be him.

I took a deep breath and swiped my finger across the screen to answer the call. With shaky hands, I raised the phone to my ear before whispering into it.

“Hello?”

There was silence, the quietest, heaviest silence I’d ever heard in my life, and I felt suddenly panicked at the void on the other end of the line. With all that open space pressed so close to my face, I felt vulnerable, exposed. When I spoke again, my voice sounded hollow and shaky to my own ears.

“Hello? Is someone there?”

Still no response, but I heard something, maybe the rustling of a headset or someone shifting in their seat. It was enough for me to know that there was indeed someone there, quietly listening to my frantic breaths. I opened my mouth wide in an attempt to silence myself.

With the phone still pressed against my ear, I rolled slowly out of bed and tiptoed toward the bedroom door. My legs felt wobbly as I crossed through the threshold and headed out toward the living room. Shelby stirred a little but remained quiet as I sat down on the couch.

And then I waited.

Or rather, we waited.

He was there—I knew it with every single bone in my body—yet neither of us spoke for ten seconds, and then another ten, and another. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to say anything, that he’d called at three thirty in the morning and was just going to sit there in silence, I felt my breathing slow and my nervousness turn to annoyance, then anger. I cleared my throat and finally spoke again, my voice low, calm, and steadier than I expected.

“Ryan, I know you’re there.”

I heard him suck in a deep breath, and then he responded almost immediately.

“Okay.”

That was it. Two syllables, his voice rough, gravelly, defiant. Then there was silence again.

I waited with the phone still pressed against my face, my chest rising and falling with each breath. I ground my jaw stubbornly, determined not to give in again, determined to sit there all damned night if I had to—