Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker - Dance of the Mirlitons (Reed Pipes) - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Mariinsky Orchestra, Valery Gergiev
The hallway is empty as Ronan boots the bathroom door in.
“Jesus,” I hiss, checking that no one heard that and came rushing over. No one does, and I swing the bathroom door shut behind us, propping it closed with the door stopper.
“What–” There’s the sound of a fist hitting flesh, and I dart around to the stalls.
“Hey there, fucker.” Ronan has Dillon pinned against the counter. Dillon is bent over, clutching his face.
“What? Nothing to say to me?” Ronan punches him again, and Dillon cries out.
“You sick.” Punch . “Son of a bitch.” Punch .
Dillon tries his best to back away, stumbling into the sinks, dripping blood everywhere.
Blood. Evidence.
“Ronan.” I grab his arm, trying to get him to stop, but it’s like he doesn’t even feel me. He stalks up to Dillon, closing the space. Grabbing Dillon’s chin, despite his scrambling hands, Ronan forces Dillon to look at him. “Not fair, is it?” There’s seething in Ronan’s voice, and his whole body is tense. He looks more lethal than I’ve ever seen him.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?”
Dillon scrambles, eyes squinted. “You–you’re crazy!”
“Crazyyyy,” Ronan sings the words, pinching the man’s cheeks gently in his hand. “No, what’s crazy is you letting pedophiles get off. That’s what’s crazy.”
In the reflection of the mirror, I see Ronan’s eyes. They’re…empty. It’s like he’s looking at something a hundred feet in front of him: glazed and just…gone. It makes me feel helpless. I don’t know how to help him.
“Look, man, I don’t know–”
Punch .
“Ronan.” Blood is going everywhere. It’ll be so hard to clean. I grab his arm, trying to wrestle him down. “The blood.”
“Get off me.” He tries to shake me off, but I hold tight. “The blood, Ronan. Evidence.”
“Fuck.” Ronan wrestles under me, slipping his arm out of my hold. Instead of stopping, he whips the gun out from his waistband, jamming it under the man’s chin. Dillon freezes, staring at Ronan with wide eyes. Now, both of them are staring at each other, one with dead eyes and the other with rings of white all the way around.
“You’re lucky I don’t like cleaning up.” Then, Ronan drops the gun in the sink and yanks Dillon to him. Stepping around him, he wraps his arm around Dillon’s neck, propping the other one up and locking Dillon in a chokehold.
“You know what else is unfair?”
Dillon grabs Ronan’s forearm, trying to pull it down. Trying to get space.
“That you’re going to die a quick death.” Ronan doesn’t even react to the man’s scrambling. Doesn’t bat an eye. Just stares at the stalls in front of him.
“Shhhh. It’ll be a nice little nap. A forever little nap.” There’s a small curl to Ronan’s lips, and I’m caught watching, entranced. Ronan is beautiful and lethal and fucking crazy. For a second, I’m caught up in it, watching as my man takes the life of another.
My man .
Those words wrap up in my mind like a whirlwind. My man? Why did that idea come so easily to me?
And just as suddenly, a wild rush of guilt follows it. Ronan isn’t my man. Greyson is. Was . How could I be so quick to replace him? This is fucked. Greyson deserves someone who actually cares to hold his memory. For years, I thought that was me. Is that not me?
I realize that the man has stopped struggling. Ronan is holding him, and the only sound is Ronan’s and my breathing.
When he finally drops him, a loud hissing sound makes me jump. I whirl, but it’s just the air freshener. Suddenly, reality catches up to me.
I replaced Greyson, and we have a dead man in a public bathroom.
Ronan brushes his hands together like he just did something distasteful, then mutters, “Not this time, Buff.”
“What the hell?” This is fucked. We need to clean up. Clean up and get out.
Right as I have that thought, something slides and the bathroom door opens.