Come To Me (Owned Book 3) (14 page)

I think there’s a point in your life, sort of how there’s a point right before an avalanche. I could have followed him. I could have strung him up by the neck and forced him to tell me what he knew. None of that would have stopped what was about to come, though, just like suddenly holding still isn’t going to stop a deluge of ice from flattening you.

Maybe deep down I knew that.

It wasn’t fate.

What happened next didn’t
have
to happen.

What happened next was just going to happen, and I couldn’t stop it.

I
watched smoke tumble into the dark sky as the fire burned down the building in the distance. Gray tendrils curled into the blackening indigo clouds, and it was impossible to tell what was smoke and what was cloud. It probably didn’t matter. I drew the curtains and turned back to the apartment. Lenny was sleeping off the drugs downstairs and tomorrow we’d head back up to the cabin.

At least, that’s what I thought.

I was starting to feel like a real fucking idiot.

As I descended the stairs to check inside the spare bedroom I’d put her in, I heard the sound of the kitchen oven. I didn’t know what I expected, like she would be making an omelet or some shit as if we were a regular fucking family.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled, running to turn off the oven.

“Sticking my head in the oven.” Lenny shrugged and pulled her head out. Sitting against the cupboards, she continued, “Or trying to. It’s electric, so all I succeeded in doing was getting my head hot.”

I ran a palm over my face. “Jesus Christ Lenny.” I didn’t know what to do with her. I felt like I was swimming with us both through the ocean and she was desperately trying to break free so she could drown. “Is this what you want? Do you want to end your life?”

“I don’t have a life,” Lenny said blandly. “I have a life adjacent. I’m adjacent to the therapist. I’m adjacent to the psychiatrist. And I’m adjacent to
you
.” I leaned against the kitchen island and stared down at her. Her eyes were dead. The spark I’d grown to love was burned out. Gripping the island for life, I didn’t know how to respond. It was like the Lennox Moore I knew had already died and the one I was looking at was a zombie searching for the grave.

“Is that how you really feel, Lenny?” I asked after a few moments.

“What do you want me to say?” she said, wringing her hands out in front of herself. “I don’t exist on my own. The Lenny without pills and your say-so isn’t the Lenny you want.”

I exhaled. “That’s bullshit, Lennox.” I tried to be calm, for Lenny, but that was utter bullshit. I knew her mind played tricks on her sometimes. I knew sometimes the world she saw wasn’t the world that was out there. I knew all that, but I wasn’t going to fucking sit by and let her think that I didn’t want her.

“I want you Lennox. I don’t care how you come. Bruised or totally fucked up, I’ll want you, but that doesn’t mean I want that
for
you. You’ve been hurting for awhile and
you
were the one that wanted to see the doc. Now, if it helps to point the finger when you aren’t feeling well, then fine, but you know I’ll take you no matter what condition you’re in.”

“Yeah, right. Do you even know why I was at that hotel tonight? I think sometimes you just think I do things. Like…I don’t think things through. I just do shit to be edgy or something.”

I almost laughed when she said that. Of course I thought that. Lenny didn’t think a damn thing through. She had a thought and she just did it. She wanted to make pancakes? Fucking blueberry pancake batter everywhere at two in the morning. She wanted to go to the hotel where she was abducted? Fucking goes to the hotel.

I was still scratching my head as to how she’d gotten there.

But…maybe it hadn’t been the best idea for me to fuck her in the hotel. No, it had probably been the worst idea. If someone was going to list all the things I could have done in that situation, fucking her was probably the absolute
last
one. If I were to tell that story, I would not come off in the best light. I would probably sound a bit insane. Probably, the people would wonder, “What the ever-loving fuck, Vic Wall, were you thinking?”

Still, that was how it was with Lennox Moore. It was a rollercoaster. You don’t get on a rollercoaster and wonder why it went upside down. Sometime ago I’d stopped questioning it.

Maybe that was a bad thing.

“Lenny…” I walked around so I could take a seat at the kitchen bar. “Lenny you don’t know why you were at the hotel. You don’t know why you’re acting the way you are. Don’t pretend like you do.” She opened her mouth to rebut but I put my hand up. “No, the only meds you’ve been taking these past months are the wrong ones. I’m willing to bet I have a better clue what’s going on inside that head of yours than you do.”

Lennox sighed and slid her head in her hands. I expected her to yell at me, or throw something. Instead she crumbled in on herself. In the years I’d been with Lenny, I’d seen many sides to her. Most people keep their sides pretty well hidden, because they don’t know themselves enough to show them.

Fuck knows I don’t.

Lenny, though, she didn’t get the choice. Her sides came roaring to life without her consent. She had happy, she had sad, she had angry, she had mad, and she had a whole mix of in between that lit up like the goddamn bat signal. The thing was, she didn’t light them up herself. They lit up, and then a couple of hours later she’d realize it, but everyone was already there, staring, and gawking, and wondering at her.

Right then Lenny was realizing what had happened. She was realizing that the bat signal had lit up “horny” and it had really, really fucking lit up.

Lennox looked up at me, eyes shiny. “I feel like I’m trapped in a prison where the jailor is my stupid brain.” I exhaled and moved back around to sit on the floor with her. I wished I could help her. I wished I could reach in and rip her from the prison her mind had built around her. Instead, I rubbed her arms.

“I don’t understand, Vic.” Lennox looked at the floor, tears evident on her lids. In the years I’d known Lenny, she’d only cried a handful of times. Each time, she took a piece of me with her. I gripped my hands on her arms tighter, trying to rub out the pain. “Why am I like this?”

“You’re special Lenny,” I explained.

Lennox laughed brokenly. “Some kind of special.”

“You see the world differently. You feel deeply. You think brighter than most. Unfortunately, it comes at a cost.”

“I wish I was normal,” Lenny said and leaned forward into my chest. I felt her sobs as I would a gong to my heart.

“No you don’t.” I rubbed her back. “Normal is the worst kind of prison.”

I
angled the glass to the fridge and as the water poured, I let myself relax. Water filled up the crystal, its sound soothing to my ears. Lenny was finally asleep upstairs, whatever demons haunted her sleeping alongside.

For a moment, things were calm, and for a moment, I let myself be calm.

Fuck me though, right? I should have known by then that the only time I got calm is before the barrage of bullet fire. The only moments I got were to say goodbye. Things had started to feel good again, though, and I’d weakened. I’d let myself wish.

Lenny called me particular, and that was on her nice days. I liked everything in its place. Towels belonged on the rack. Dishes belonged in the cupboard and china on the display. Nothing should be out on the counter.

So why the fuck was a small black box wrapped neatly with black ribbon sitting carefully on the counter? While Lenny was doing her best impersonation of Sylvia Plath, I hadn’t noticed it. Now, though, as I pulled the nearly overflowing glass away from the spigot, it was impossible
not
to miss.

I carefully walked toward the counter, keeping my hand steady despite the water that wanted to spill. I didn’t need to open the box to know what it meant, but I did anyway. In the brief seconds before the wrapping fell away, I thought back to what I should have done. I should have heeded that bright red car’s warning. I should have listened to the words behind what the asshole said. I should have sent Lenny away. For a moment, though, I’d let myself be calm.

Is this when I say something about storms?

“You don’t get families either, Vic.”

When I opened the box, what I saw made me drop my water, but not because I was surprised. I’d been expecting it since the beginning. I dropped the glass because reality had finally come home. Even with all the silence and the screams, the shit and the fuckery, for the past months I’d been deluding myself. I’d let myself think there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but now my tunnel had caved in.

Glass hit tile, shards flew everywhere. One might have pierced me. I thought water might have spilled on me based on the cool numbness I started to feel.

I don’t know.

I was too busy staring into the box.

“What’s going on?” I glanced at Lenny with her ruby hair messed up like she’d just been fucked, sleepy at the top of the stairs, the shirt she’d borrowed from me wrinkled and dipping to the side of her shoulder.

“Nothing…” I waved her off, hiding the box behind my back. “I just dropped the glass.”

“Are you okay?” Lenny asked, rubbing her eyes.

“I’m fine,” I said, keeping my voice level.

“What’s that?” I followed her finger to the black wrapping that had fallen to the floor.

“It must be left over from the birthday party,” I lied.

“I thought I’d cleaned all that up…” Lenny yawned and scanned the room, looking for stray bits of birthday party.

“Everything is fine, go back to sleep.” Lenny shrugged and pulled the shirt up tight, turning back toward our room. When I was sure she wasn’t coming back, I extracted the small black card.

H
ours after Lennox had gone back to sleep, I flipped the black card in my hand. The gloss face reflected against the granite kitchen counter. It didn’t have a name or number, just an address. Two addresses, actually.

Both my apartment
and
my fucking safe house.

In case I got any ideas about hiding.

I knew what it meant. Anyone in my line of work knew what a black card with their address meant. It meant they’d been marked. Somewhere, someone had an identical card, except it was white. That person would be coming for me. Maybe they were already here, waiting.

Fuck!
I moved to slam my fist against the adjoining kitchen wall but stopped short an inch from the plaster, for the very reason that I felt the need to crush my fingers.

Lenny
.

She was upstairs, asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her. I’d heard that love made you a fool, but I hadn’t known it made you a complete fucking idiot. It was like all my training flew out the window the minute I met Lenny.

Years ago I’d made my bed. I’d married the devil, then had the gall to divorce her.

I deserved everything that was coming.

But Lenny didn’t.

I turned the card in my hand, my stomach churning. I’d known Alice would get her revenge, but I hadn’t thought she would have GEM on her side when she did it. It was a revelation I should have come to much sooner, but I’d been so wrapped up in my own shit I didn’t see it.