Smother (19 page)

Ryan looked at Reese and his mouth twisted. “We’ll meet again. Be watching for me,” he mocked.

“This is my apartment building,” Leo rumbled. “Come here again, and it won’t be good for either of you.”

Ryan snorted as he turned to the door. “What are you going to do, call the police?”

“No.”

Ryan paused and looked over his shoulder, his attention grabbed by that one word. When Leo didn’t say anything else, exasperation threaded his words as he demanded, “What then?”

“Worse. I’ll get mad.” His face was a picture of concealed rage, his eyes flashing with indisputable retaliation.

Daniel stepped out with Ryan following him. Daniel glanced at Reese and said, “This isn’t over.”

Leo brushed past her, his movements fast for someone so large. He didn’t say anything as he landed a fist to Daniel’s face and his head flung sideways like it wasn’t connected to his neck. His back hit the wall as he groaned, one hand lifting to his cheek.

“Yes. It is over,” Leo told him calmly.

Ryan spun on him, spitting as he snarled, “You just signed your death warrant.” He looked at Amber. “Let’s go.”

Leo shifted in front of Reese and Amber. “She’s not going with you.”

“Amber.”

Eyes shifting in her head, Amber didn’t know where to look or what to do. A small whimper left her.

Gentling his tone, Leo turned to Amber and said, “I promise you, you’re safe. You don’t have to go with them.”

He promised? Had he ever promised Reese anything? Leo hadn’t said a word to her yet, hadn’t really looked at her. She fidgeted, her arms yearning to rise and wrap around herself. She bit her lip and fisted her hands to keep them down. Reese focused on breathing. It was something she could do without messing it up.

Amber looked up and stared at Leo. There was awe in her expression, her eyes wide with it. She blinked her eyes and took a step farther away from Ryan and Daniel. “I’m not going with you,” she said in a faltering voice.

The skin around Ryan’s mouth tightened and his eyes flashed. “Remember that the next time you need a fix. Remember we know where to find you too,” he added in a quieter voice.

She lowered her eyes, the truth of her inevitability to need more drugs causing shame to color Amber’s cheeks.

With one last glower aimed Leo’s way, Ryan and Daniel left. The air cleared in their absence. Reese could breathe again. She watched Leo, but he was watching Amber. His expression was blank, just a faint tick in his jaw the only proof that he was upset.

“Amber,” he murmured.

Amber raised her head to look at Leo.

“Need a ride home?”

She looked at Reese before offering him a shy smile. She nodded and wiped tears from her cheeks. “Please,” she whispered.

Amber clasped together hands that trembled. Reese knew they didn’t just shake from fear—withdrawal played a part in it. Now that the adrenaline of the moment was fading, the need for a synthetic high called to her.

“Let’s go.”

Reese’s eyes shot to Leo, disbelief and hurt hitting her in the stomach. He was just going to leave her? Why wouldn’t he look at her? Did he blame her for this? He should. He should hate her and he should blame her. It was too bad she knew this wouldn’t be the last time she messed up in astronomical ways.

“You need to file a report on them,” he continued.

“Yeah. Sure.” Amber wouldn’t meet his eyes. She wouldn’t go to the police because she would eventually go back to Ryan and Daniel to get her drugs.

It was a hopeless situation, and if Reese cared more, maybe she’d try to intervene, but she didn’t. Amber would either find someone else to help her, help herself, or she wouldn’t be helped.

You are every pair of eyes that could have seen what you were going through as a child and chose not to. You are every person that could have reached out to help and didn’t. You’re doing to Amber what was done to you, which is nothing.

Reese shifted uncomfortably, knowing it was true. There was no hero in her story, why should anyone else get one?

“Come on. I’ll take you home.” Leo jerked his head toward the exit.

Reese’s insides turned to stone, then crumbled to dust.
Mine,
every part of her screamed.
Mine.
It was wrong to be jealous of Amber, of the attention Leo gave her, especially now, but it choked her just the same. Where were her words? Normally so easy to fall from her lips in retorts and putdowns, but now absent. She couldn’t form them around the ache inside.

Amber looked at her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

She shrugged and looked away, hurting for another reason than for what Amber was apologizing. “It’s okay. We weren’t really friends anyway.”

It’s okay that you betrayed me. It’s okay that you gave my apartment number to two psychopaths who would have harmed me.
It’s okay that your drugs are more important than my life. I get it. I’m less to you than your addiction. And you’re nothing to me.

Her eyes darkened with hurt when Reese glanced her way. “Right.”

Amber slowly walked to the steps, and only then did Leo look at Reese. Reese swallowed as his gaze collided with hers, her body unconsciously straightening under the thunderstorms in his eyes. A flash of emotion hit his features, changed them from uncaring to suffering. She blinked and it was gone.

“Go to the shop and lock the door. Stay there until I get back.” His voice was sharp, harder with her than it had been with Amber.

Reese opened her mouth and the slice of his eyes made her rethink what she was going to say. She nodded and looked past him. Amber stood downstairs by the door that led outside. Reese walked down the steps, whispering a ‘thank you’ as she passed her. Because even though Amber betrayed her, in the end, she redeemed herself by getting help.

The cold caused tiny convulsions to erupt along her skin as she crossed the street. She opened the door to the tattoo shop and warmth and safety wrapped around her. Reese looked up as she locked the door. Leo watched her from the sidewalk. He didn’t move until he heard the lock click in place. Then he was gone, taking Amber with him.

Waiting was not something Reese excelled at. She kept seeing Ryan and Daniel in her mind, felt them on her flesh. She was chilled, arms hugging herself as her skin pebbled. It could have been much worse than it was. It still could be, if they didn’t heed Leo’s warning.

She wandered around the room, studying each drawing upon the wall. Each drop of black ink belonged to Leo. He made this wall. She focused on that instead of what had almost happened, steadying her breathing as her eyes took in the designs and pictures. Reese found her bird among the artwork, the one he’d drawn not that long ago. The one he’d told her wasn’t for her. She tilted her head, thinking he was wrong. It was for her. Even if he hadn’t intended it to be, it was.

Reese fingered the necklace around her neck, bowing her head so that her forehead rested on her knuckles. It was for her, and this necklace was proof of that. The necklace she’d tried to give back, the one she now never took off.

Leo found her like that, head lowered, fingers wrapped around a tiny bird she swore she didn’t want.

She looked up when the door shut, taking in the twisted features of his face and taut body. “Is Amber okay?”

“Yes,” he ground out.

With the grace of a lion and the viciousness of a shark, he spun around and punched his fist against the closest wall, cracking bones and bloodying his knuckles.

Stunned, she went immobile, the aptitude to move or speak taken from her with his act of fury.

Chest heaving, face livid, he swiped the appointment book from the desk, along with his sketches. Her throat thickened at the poor treatment of his artwork. Even as she witnessed the destruction, she ached for him. Reese watched the damage of a quiet man with something like horrified amazement. But when the anger was spent, and he dropped to his knees and held his head, she couldn’t stand it. His shoulders shook and blood trickled down one hand to merge with the other. The backs of his hands were painted in red.

Reese stepped toward him, panic pulsing through her. This was too much. Seeing a man, who normally held everything inside, lose control wasn’t as intriguing as she’d first thought. It was just sad. He hurt, and as she saw the devastation of it, she realized she never wanted him to hurt again.

“Leo?” Reese reached a hand out and he got to his feet, moving away from her and facing the other way.

“I want to keep you safe and I can’t.” His voice was so quiet she strained her ears to catch his words.

She didn’t know what he was talking about and she wondered if he really did.

Leo turned around and strode for her, determination pulling his features taut. Her heartbeats quickened the closer he got, her pulse on rapid speed. Reese waited for words, angry words that would put the blame at her feet where it belonged. But he stopped. And the dips and frowns faded from his face until it was open, clear, and aching. He lifted his uninjured hand and she stiffened, that self-preservation element entrenched in her telling her to go still when a raised hand came at her.

He paused, hand still lifted. “I would never hurt you.”

Reese’s voice was firm as she said, “I know that.”

Leo tilted his head, and slowly brought his palm closer. It grazed her hot flesh, roughened fingertips gentle against the place that throbbed from another hand, a different set of prints. “Might bruise.”

Reese looked into his eyes. His eyebrows lowered and she wondered what expression she carried for him to react in such a way. There was no hero in her story, but if there could be, it would be Leo. The ravaged, tortured hero that felt too much and hid it behind barriers.

“So will your hand.”

Leo’s jaw shifted. “Wanted it to be their broken, bloody faces.”

“They’ll come after you.”

“They won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

He let his hand fall away as he stepped back. “Because I’ll be going after them first.”

Fear scratched at her throat, climbed up it. “Don’t do that. They’ll hurt you.”

His face darkened, and with the old wounds on his face, it gave him a sinister look. “They hurt you. It’s not even a question whether or not I’ll be going after them.”

She blinked against tears, but they came anyway to fill her eyes and fall to her cheeks. He brushed them away with his thumb. Reese sucked in a sharp breath, shocked by the tenderness of it.

“I don’t like to be touched,” she whispered.

Leo immediately stepped away.

Reese reached for his hands, noted the cuts and scabs on them—the fresh blood. His touch was the only one she didn’t revile, but she couldn’t tell him that. He carefully stepped away and she let her hands fall without touching him. She didn’t know what was happening. She wanted to give him something, but nothing seemed enough. Time muted as they studied one another.

“Go home, Reese,” he said gently. “Get some rest.”

“But—” She closed her mouth against the words about to erupt. She was scared and that pissed her off, but her irritation with it didn’t make her any less afraid. They could come back for her. They could be waiting, even now.

“They won’t come after you again.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.” His eyes made assurances she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “You won’t ever see either of them again.”

“But—”

“That’s all I can give you. Don’t ask me anything more.”

Reese slowly nodded, believing him. There was her promise. They wouldn’t come back. Leo would make sure of it.
Don’t ask how. Don’t wonder. Just accept. Believe.
She left the tattoo shop, wondering if she’d switched out one set of dangerous men for another.

I’ve done a lot I’m not proud of. I think we all have. When I create something special for someone, especially if it’s to permanently go on their skin, I feel good. I’ll admit, knowing my work is tattooed on random people going about in the world is a little bit of redemption tossed my way. ~ Leo

It was Thanksgiving, one of two dreaded holidays Reese had to spend alone each year. Partly by choice and partly because the only person she wanted to spend them with wasn’t around. She grabbed her winter jacket and left the apartment.

She paused outside when she saw the light on in the tattoo shop. Reese had expected Leo to be with family or friends for the holiday. He had to have some somewhere. She realized she didn’t even know that about him. Frowning, she crossed the street, the single digit temperature hurrying her along.

It had been almost two weeks since the run-in with Ryan and Daniel. Each day without a visit from them was a good one, but part of her still expected it, and then wondered why it hadn’t happened yet. It couldn’t be over that easily. And if they weren’t going after her, the logical alternative was either Amber or Leo. She hadn’t spoken to Amber since the incident and she didn’t think she would. That ruse of a friendship was over.

But she wouldn’t give up Leo, not even when she told herself to. Even though they hadn’t changed their behavior toward one another, at some point, an understanding formed between them.

Reese peeked through the window above the door before checking to see if it was unlocked. The door swung open, warm air and the scent of coffee blasting her. Leo glanced up from where he worked at his desk, immediately returning his attention to the sketchpad before him.