Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) Read Online Free PDF

horrifying certainty. When you know something like that, you can’t think of anything else.
    I couldn’t go outside. The dreams were bad enough, but at least I could tell myself that they couldn’t hurt me. Outside, the threat was real.
    At first, it wasn’t too bad. My injured leg meant that no one expected me to attend events anyway. I hunkered down in the residence. If someone asked how I was doing, I said fine, because I’d convinced myself that this was just a temporary glitch and normal service would soon be restored. For the same reason, I didn’t call the therapists the doctors had recommended. Six people had died and it was my fault because, ultimately, it had been me the gunmen had been targeting. I’d been lucky enough to survive: what right did I have to be messed up? It’ll get better. Give it time.
    There was another factor, too. I’m not just Emily, I’m the President’s daughter. A lot of the time it’s like being a freakin’ fairy tale princess: I know how lucky I am. But there are strings attached. Ever since my dad took office, I’d done my best to support him. I’d been to every press event, watched every word I said to the press... I even agreed to take a job with my mom’s charitable foundation, even though it wasn’t what I wanted. And I’m okay with the sacrifices: my family is a team.
    If I let myself crack up over this, if I had to go to therapy, I felt like I’d be letting the team down.
    But the nightmares didn’t go away. I slept because I was exhausted but I woke several times a night. Sometimes I was out of bed and across the room, cowering in a corner, before I fully woke up. I dreamed that I was shot and stabbed and poisoned. I dreamed that men tied me and tortured me and raped me, that they killed the people I loved. And every time, it was worse because it was somehow my fault.
    I could barely function, much less go out. But the longer I stayed inside, the more frightening the outside world became. The day before, I’d been itching to move out of The White House and get a place of my own. Now, it was my one safe haven.
    The first warning sign was the memorial service for those killed, in the Rose Garden, I stood between my mom and dad and shook hands with the relatives, I told them how brave their loved ones had been and how we’d never forget their service and I meant every word. But I felt like the facade was shattering in slow motion, big jagged cracks with nothing but a dark void between them. Not bolting for the safety of the White House was like trying to stand my ground as an 18-wheeler truck roared straight toward me. Every time the cameras clicked, my stomach knotted as I waited for the first bullet to slam into me.
    That day was a turning point. Something snapped inside me and, from then on, I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t take the chance that something awful would happen. So I made excuses: I said my leg hurt, I told them I had to prep for the new job I was due to start soon with a charitable foundation... anything but the truth.
     
    ***
     
    It had been a full month—it wasn’t as if the date could pass without me noticing because the TV news channels were full of the “one month anniversary.” A full month of me being weak and stupid and people growing silently frustrated with me.
    Tonight’s the night. This has to stop.
    Tonight, I had to go out. A concert by the New York Philharmonic at the John F. Kennedy Center. A limo ride, a thirty-second walk across the red carpet and a few hours in a big, safe room listening to great music. Easy. Except that thirty seconds would feel like thirty years. Except every camera click would make me want to throw up.
    I dug my nails into the palms of my hands and marched off to see my dad. The more people knew I was going, the harder it would be for me to back out.
    I caught him coming out of the Oval Office. “Emily!” He gave me big, warm, Texas smile. “Feeling okay?”
    My dad is in his sixties and what people