Until Alex (19 page)

He nodded, but I wasn’t convinced he believed me.

“Me.”

“What?”

“You said you didn’t have anyone to rely on. But you’ve got me. You can rely on me. Even if I’m angry as hell at you, you can still rely on me.”

He didn’t respond, just dropped a kiss to the crown of my head and let it linger.

CHAPTER TWENTY

HAYDEN

Thick fog hovered over the dark road. Heavy rain bounced off the windshield. Both made it impossible to see more than ten feet in front of my truck. I pulled up the hood of my sweatshirt and sank into my shell. After being out of commission for over a week, I needed to mentally prepare for the job I loathed.

Remy’s leg bounced wildly beside me as he chewed away at his pinky nail. Something was up with him. But I had no desire to find out what it was. I just wanted to get the job over with and get the hell home.

That’s where I needed to be.

With Alex.

The same Alex who disappeared from my apartment the previous night after I spilled my guts to her. It was insane. Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. All the shit I kept bottled up just poured out of me. I knew it’s why she left. She didn’t want to push me too far. And while her leaving sucked, it gave me time to think.

She was obviously someone I could confide in. Someone I could be myself with. Someone I could care about—
did
care about. 

But could I ever let her all the way in?

Could I pick and choose what I disclosed? Could I avoid telling her everything?

Because two things stood in my way.

The huge skeleton in my closet. The one that would send her packing the second she found out.

And my job—my debt to Remy.

But unless I moved away from town, maybe even Texas, I’d never be able to escape the hold Remy had over me. I mean, how could I ever repay the guy who took the fall for me? 

I took a deep breath, letting the sad truth seep in. I was stuck in a no-win situation. And there was no end in sight. No way out. Could I really pull Alex into it with me?

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I slowed in front of a dilapidated house twenty minutes outside of the town limits. There were no houses on the immediate left or right. They were tucked behind trees in more of a zigzagged pattern you’d find in rural areas. And with the heavy slanted rain, none could be seen from the dirt road.

Remy sat forward, slipping his gun into the back of his belt. When I stopped the truck, he pushed open the passenger door. The crisp October air and a shitload of mist rushed inside filling my body with chills.

“Be right back.” He hopped out and tore off toward the front door. The rain drenched him instantly, but it didn’t slow down his determined stride.

I unfastened the gun from below my seat and tucked it into my belt
. I hated the looks of the place. Only two of the windows possessed shutters. Roof shingles littered the ankle-high front lawn. The screen door hung on a single hinge. And three beaten old cars sat on cinderblocks in the gravel driveway.

My eyes flashed to the front door. The lopsided screen pushed open and the barrel of a shotgun emerged pointed directly at Remy’s forehead.

His hands flew up.

Motherf
ucker.

A guy peered around the gun, searching behind Remy. I dropped in my seat, hoping like hell the downpour obscured his view. I was no coward, but I couldn’t help Remy if the guy knew I lurked in the darkness.

I slid over to the passenger side and slipped out the door. My adrenaline spiked and shivers overtook my body as the rain saturated my clothes. Luckily, my truck concealed me from the house and its whacked-out owner. It gave me a second to plot out my route. I needed to be cautious not to reveal my presence too soon or move my almost-healed ribs too quickly.

I took a deep breath, then
ducked behind tree trunks and crept to the side of the house. Once I made it to the driveway, I crouched between the cars. It sucked knowing nights like these were what my life had come to.

The side door to the house sat ajar. I hurried to it, slipping inside unnoticed. I glided along the empty kitchen wall in my squishy sneakers
, pausing to listen for anything indicating there were others in the house.

Except for the rain pinging off the remaining shingles in droning successions, it was unnervingly silent.

I stepped through the kitchen doorway and into the living room. Luckily, it was a hoarder’s dream. The junk piled everywhere concealed me from the guy at the front door with his back to me and his gun still on Remy.

Soaked to the bone, Remy babbled from his spot on the front steps
saying whatever it took to get the guy to lower the gun. “I’m serious, man. Let’s make a deal. I’ll make it worth your while. No one ever has to know.”

I slid my gun from my belt and stalked over to the owner with the gun extended in front of me. I lifted it to the back of his head, releasing the safety to announce my arrival.

Click.

I closed my eyes with my arms still wrapped around
my mom, braced for the impact of the bullet.

“This is all your fault.”

H
e fired.

I
shuddered at the memory, needing to pull my shit together. Needing to get Remy out of there unharmed.

Everything happened in slow motion. The guy lowered his shotgun. Remy grabbed for it. The guy wouldn’t relinquish it. He slammed the butt of the gun into Remy’s stomach, sending him folding at the waist.

Click.

My body stilled
.

T
he sound hadn’t come from my gun.

A gun jammed into the back of my head, snapping my neck forward.

“Say a prayer, motherfucker,” a gruff voice declared. A large hand grasped my shoulder and shoved me to my knees. I had no time to react. He ripped the gun from my hands.

My eyes squeezed shut. Visions of my mother at the moment my father shot her flooded my mind. Her fear. Her gasp. Her blood. God, there was so much blood. The gruesome images remained engrained in every blink of my eyes. Every breath. Every nightmare. Even at the hour of my death.

The gun’s trigger
popped
behind my head. I flinched.  Shivers rocked through me, sending my body into a fit of tremors.

A bellowing laugh rumbled in my ear. “Well how about that. A game of Russian roulette. Someone up there must be looking out for you.” Without hesitation, he slammed the butt of the gun into the back of my head. Pain exploded as my body folded, my face hitting the hardwood floor. “Too bad your luck’s run out.” 

A gunshot crackled the air, thundering throughout the room. I shielded my head, tucking my body into a ball.

Had I been shot? Had Remy?

I waited for the darkness to engulf me. To take me to my mother. To absolve me of my sins. To rid me of the guilt and pain I’d carried for far too long.

But the darkness never came.

Neither did the pain of a bullet tearing through my body.

I kept my head tucked down, praying to be put out of my misery quickly. I couldn’t bleed out on the floor of this hell hole. This wasn’t how my life was supposed to end.

A heavy thud dropped to my right. My body instinctively jumped to the left. My eyes cracked open. The guy from the front door lay sprawled in an unnatural position on the floor beside me. Face down, blood pooling around his body.

My body stayed down, but my head flew up. Remy stood with the dead guy’s shotgun pointed at the man behind me. I hadn’t seen him yet. But his deep voice had me conjuring a hundred different monstrous images.

“Now why would your buddy go and put a bullet through your head?” Remy asked him, so calm, so cool, so devious.

Another loud blast crackled the air. 

I dropped back down, my arms shielding my head. And even though Remy had fired the shotgun, my body shook like a thing unnatural. 

“Twice.” Remy fired another shot, leaving no doubt my attacker was dead.

ALEX

The flow of rain outside provided a calming peace in my aunt’s otherwise silent living room. The pumpkin-scented candles I’d set out provided just enough light to study by. Most girls would’ve been afraid to be home alone during a late-night storm, especially with the thunder and lightning claiming their place in the sky and knocking out the electricity. But not me. I enjoyed the darkness and the solace created by the storm.

S
oft tapping came from the front door. I snatched my cell from the end table and checked the time. Just after midnight. No wonder why I could barely keep my eyes opened. I grabbed a candle and stood from the sofa, feeling a little hesitant to approach the door, especially with my aunt away at my parents’ vineyard. But once I checked the peephole, my fears subsided.

I pulled open the door. Hayden stood drenched with his head hanging down.

“Hey,” I smiled, not having seen him since our heart to heart the previous night. 

When he looked up with bloodshot eyes and damp flushed cheeks, the smile slipped from my face. 

Tears? 

Shit
.

I placed the candle down on the small table beside the door and launched myself into him, wrapping my arms around his soaked body and tucking my head under his chin. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

He clutched his arms around my shoulders, gripping me as if he needed me for support. His entire body trembled. His choppy breaths caught in his throat.

Were his
wet clothes causing the reaction or something else?

I moved us away from the doorway and into the living room, closing the door with my foot to separate us from the outside world. Since Hayden wouldn’t relinquish his grasp on me, I maneuvered us to the sofa. When the backs of my knees touched it, I eased us down
and just held him. Feeling the tremors tearing through his body, I held him tighter.

After a long moment passed,
I pulled back slightly so I could see his face. His distant tortured face. “Hayden?”

His usually gorgeous eyes stared blankly at me, like he wasn’t seeing me at all. Like everything except his body was somewhere else. His teeth chattered wildly. I cupped his frigid stubbly cheeks between my hands and searched his eyes for a sign of life behind the darkness. Sadly, the darkness prevailed. “I need to get you out of these wet clothes.”

The Hayden I’d come to know would’ve made some smartass comment, egging me on, calling my bluff. But that wasn’t the same Hayden seated with me. The one lost somewhere deep inside his own head. And I had no freaking clue how to reach him.

I tugged down the zipper on his sweatshirt and slipped the sleeves down his arms. His eyes followed my movements, but he didn’t stop me.

I discarded his soaked sweatshirt on the hardwood floor, and grasped the hem of his red T-shirt. I lifted it slowly, cautious of his broken ribs. He bore it like the pillar of strength he normally was, never even wincing. I wondered if his ribs had healed, or if the pain in his ribs paled in comparison to whatever troubled him.

I dropped his shirt onto the growing pile, noticing faint bruises covering both his sides. His eyes followed my hands as I gently trailed them over his naked chest. My fingertips skated over the deep ridges in his torso and abs, made more prominent by the flickering of the candles. It wasn’t at all how I imagined this experience happening. “Tell me where you’re hurt.”

His eyes locked on mine, but he didn’t speak. He reached his hand behind his head, wincing as he touched it. I ran my fingers under his in his dripping hair, finding the huge egg-shaped lump he’d indicated.

I jumped to my feet, retrieving an ice pack from my aunt’s freezer. I scooted in behind him and held the pack to his head. What wasn’t he telling me? What was he involved in?

Before I could ask if he had any other pain, my eyes widened.

The dim candlelight made me question my eyesight. Question what I’d seen
on the back of his left shoulder. But when I focused all of my attention on that one spot, there was no denying it. A new tattoo covered his skin.

It took everything I had not to trace my finger over the beautiful angel. Her wavy dark hair. Her flowing dress.

“It’s you,” his raspy voice admitted, startling the hell out of me.

I somehow managed to keep the ice pack to the back of his head and, in what felt like slow motion, shift beside him. I glanced into his bloodshot
eyes. “What?”

He searched my face. “It’s you.”

Before I could stop it, my breath whooshed through my lips. “Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

I shook my head, my heart pounding around in my chest like a pinball.

Hayden lifted his icy hands to my cheeks. “It’s how I see you. This shining light in my otherwise dismal existence.”

I dropped the ice pack and grabbed hold of his hands on my cheeks. Closing my eyes, I savored the moment. Savored his touch. Savored his words. Savored his vulnerability.

“Tonight was a wakeup call for me. A big fucking wakeup call. It reminded me how fast things can change. How fast everything can be taken away from me. Alex, I need you.”

My eyes snapped open. Hayden’s honesty stared back at me. It was there for the world to see. For
me
to see.