Come To Me (Owned Book 3) (24 page)

L
enny sat at the café we’d eaten at so many times before, and I sat a few tables over, the shadows my constant friends. A day later, Grace’s words still played in my head like a stuck vinyl. Was I running away? Was I a coward? Maybe. I wasn’t sure if that changed a damn thing. We were outside, but Lenny didn’t look at the sunset. Instead she worked on spreadsheets while sipping at a coffee. She didn’t even notice as a man approached her.

He looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him. He had a weak chin, brown eyes, and a calculating gaze. I sat up from my perch in the shadows.

“Do you remember me?” The man asked the question, but he wasn’t looking for an answer. I could see by the look on his face he only wanted one thing: to make Lenny squirm.

Lenny crinkled her brow, as if trying to search through her mind. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

“A couple of years ago you took me home and then told me to fuck off.” At his words the memory hit me. It was before Lenny and I became us, back when I was trying to fight our magnetism. She brought home the fucker and I remembered watching him paw at her with unskilled hands.

I hadn’t known she’d told him to fuck off, though. I’d thought she’d taken him to bed. Clearly, he’d held on to that rejection like a dog does a bone.

Lenny scooted back a bit in her chair, uneasy. “I’m sorry…”

“You’re all alone now. Want to pick up where we left off?” He didn’t smile as he made the offer.

“I was actually just about to go meet a friend.” Lenny stood up. Shuffling the papers into her hands, she brushed past him. A look of fury flashed across his face. Quick as lightning, it was gone, and just like lightning, I could see the harm it intended to do.

I made sure to turn my face into my palm when she walked by me. Her stride was so quick that she blew up my napkin. It fluttered to the floor, kissing her heel as she walked out of the café. Seconds later the man crushed it to the concrete as he followed her out. Leaving a few twenties for the bill, I joined them.

L
enny turned the corner, oblivious to the man trailing right behind her. I noticed she purposefully avoided our old street. I’d only walked by it a few times myself. The ashes had been dusted away, the debris swept. Now it was just an empty lot.

I never did take good care of the building the way I should have. It was an antique, an historic building dating back to the eighteen hundreds. I’d purchased it because it was cheap and afforded me a good cover. I might not have been the best landlord, but I kept rent low. Now the lot would undoubtedly be purchased by a developer and the units sold for millions.

It was California, after all.

Because Lenny purposefully avoided our street, she turned down all types of alleys as she made her way back to Grace’s. She picked up her pace and so did the asshole from the café. I lost them when Lenny crossed the street and I missed the light. As much as I wanted to try my luck at playing Frogger with the cars, it was rush hour, so it made more sense to wait.

The light turned red and I sprinted. I looked left and right, trying to see if I could spot her bright red hair. The sun had dropped beneath the waters and it was full dark. A dusky, cobalt color now blanketed the sky, but her hair always shone no matter the time of day.

I listened, trying to see if I could hear her instead.

“Do you remember me now, cunt?” The asshole’s voice drifted over sounds of cars and people talking. My heart leapt in my chest. Was this how it was going to be? After everything, after fucking dying, I let her fall to the hands of some lowlife with a grudge?

Letting all the superfluous noises fade away, I narrowed in on his voice. It doesn’t matter how close a person is, if you’re not trained, it can be nearly impossible to pinpoint which direction a sound is coming from. Letting not even my own breathing distract me, I followed the cadence of his rage
.

As soon as I fingered the location of his voice, I ran. Avoiding shoulders, trashcans, everything, I sprinted until I reached them. When I got there I expected to find Lenny crumpled in the corner of the alley. I expected a redo of Dean, of GEM, of our life, basically. Instead I got…

“Yeah I remember you. Will you finally fuck off now?” Lenny took his head in both arms and brought it up to her knee, quickly knocking him out. He fell to the ground and crumpled. Lenny stood above him, a slight cock to her head, as if studying what she’d just done.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: you can never prepare yourself for Lenny.

Where the fuck had she learned how to do that?

In all the mayhem, I hadn’t realized how close I’d gotten. The intense, visceral longing that drove me to protect Lenny had driven me until I was just behind her. I had prepared myself to fling the asshole against the wall. I’d been prepared to string him up and strappado him. When I’d arrived, he was already limp.

So now I was just behind Lenny. I could smell her. I could practically touch her—

Ouch. Motherfucker that hurt.

“Is it asshole night or something?” Lenny yelled as she cocked her elbow into my nose. Surprise hit me first, but then realization:
She thinks I want to hurt her.
As she readied her foot, I grabbed it, spinning her so she fell off balance. She danced on one leg then summoned all her weight to kick off me.

We both fell, our bodies flung in opposite directions. She immediately scampered to stand and fight.

“Lenny!” I pleaded—though, fuck, what she was doing was incredibly arousing.

Her eyes went wide when she locked in on me. Big and blue, they looked at me like I was a ghost.

I suppose I was.

I
reached out to touch her cheek, unable to stop myself after weeks of holding back. She scampered back, plastering herself against the brick alley. I couldn’t blame her. If I saw the dead I would freak the fuck out too. Eyes wide, she stared at me. Sighing, I sat back on my ankles.

Lennox Moore was like a beacon for trouble. Some people are like that, though. Some people shine so bright the world can’t help but want to snuff it out.

They attract jealousy.

They attract rage.

If people can’t own the light, they’ll do everything they can to make it duller. Me, I’m just damn lucky, damn glad I got to stand in it for as long as I did.

“What the fuck is this?” she eventually asked.

“It’s me, Lenny.”

“No it isn’t. I’m hallucinating. I’m seeing things again.” Lenny tried to stand up, but some injury prevented it. She fell and tripped into me. I held her and it was bliss. I’d been imagining her body next to mine for weeks. For the few brief seconds she didn’t fight me, it was ecstasy. Her scent, her feel, all finally back where they belonged: with me.

The reason for my holding her was of course terrible. She was in pain—again. I quickly recounted our fight, but couldn’t discover a reason for why she would be injured. Had I not arrived soon enough and that asshole had already hurt her? Questions flew through my head like loose pages in a windstorm.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“But your leg?”

“It’s just a fucking training injury.”
Training injury?
What the fuck did that mean? I wanted to sit down in the alley, in the dirt, next to the asshole and needles filled with Hep C and learn about everything she’d had to deal with, but I could feel her slipping away.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she said, trying to push off me. “I have to get my meds adjusted.”

“No you don’t, it’s me.” I held her tight. “I’m here.” For that moment, stuck together in the dirty, dark alley, everything came together. It wasn’t perfect, but then nothing between us ever was. It was calm, though, and tranquil. For that moment, we were whole again.

Then it all snapped and broke as both our heads shot to the side at a loud noise. The asshole she’d kicked to the ground shot up and ran stumbling out of the alley, and the brief respite we’d had went stumbling out with him.

Lenny shot me a glare. “This is ridiculous. I’m not…” She shook her head. “I’m not going to listen to this. I’m moving on. I’m moving past us. You’re dead. Just stay dead.”

She moved to follow the asshole, but I panicked. For weeks I’d been watching her, telling myself I would let her go, that I would do whatever needed to be done so she would be happy and safe. For the first time in those weeks, I finally acknowledged the lie.

Without Lenny I was breathless, I was lifeless, I was soulless. I pulled her back, afraid that if she left the alley I would lose her forever.

“G
et off me!” Lenny screamed, sinking her nails into my forearms. I refused. I wrapped my arms around her, straightjacketing her with my muscles. Holding her, I let her nails forge into me, letting her screams echo around us. I wouldn’t let her go, not any more, never again. I’d let her go too many times in our past. Going forward, never again.

Eventually she settled down. Breathing heavily, she relaxed into me, nails still dug into my skin.

“That was you at the bar, wasn’t it?” she whispered. My silence stretched, twisting until it tugged on my gut to answer. Instead, I breathed in the smell of her hair.

“Wasn’t it, Vic?” she pressed.

“Yes.”

She knocked her head against my still pretty fucking sore nose and, in my surprise, I let her go. Spinning around, she faced me, eyes flashing in the dark. “I thought I was going insane! I nearly checked myself into a hospital. I thought I was seeing the ghost of my ex.” She paused, taking her lip between her teeth. I didn’t say anything, didn’t try to defend myself. There were no adequate defenses for how I’d acted. Sure, I had my explanations, but nothing would be good enough.

I waited for her to speak again and with one hand wiped the blood from my nose. It had been broken more times than I could count, though this was definitely my favorite way. She walked back and forth, muttering to herself, occasionally cursing. My name was uttered a few times, but never at me. “Have you been following me?” she asked, her head darting up.

“Yes.”

“For how long?” She rushed to me, her delicate features suddenly right in my face. Where before she had been looking at the ground, now I saw everything: her pain, her confusion, her anger, her resentment—it was all right in my fucking face.

Now it was my turn to look away. “Since the funeral.” I didn’t look up, but could tell by the volume of her voice that she’d walked away.

“I’ve felt your presence everywhere. I’ve felt it like the sun on my back. I’ve had to go to the therapist every single goddamn day. She said it would get better, that eventually my grief would fade to sorrow and my sorrow would fade to sadness and eventually…eventually I would let you go, but I
knew
that wouldn’t happen. I knew I would go mad before that happened.” Lenny took a break, her breathing heavy. “Now I know why, because you were never gone… How could you?”

“I had to do it. It was the only way to keep you all safe.” It sounded lifeless and worthless, even to me.

Lenny cocked her head to the side as if weighing the worth of my statement. I knew it was going to come out shit. “We’ve done some pretty fucked up things to each other, but I think this takes the cake.”