Chapter 21 Noah #2
Torin looks around and I browse for five minutes, then ten, then easily burn half an hour just tucking into every corner of the store.
It’s simple, yet it’s perfect. I end up getting so many heavy books that I leave them on hold at the register so that I can come back with a car later to pick them up.
“You like?” Torin asks as we step outside.
“I’m surrounded by books all the time, but I still can’t get enough of them. That was… the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”
Torin’s bright smile spreads over his face. “I can’t believe the same person who used to only have fun with a bottle of Jack is also the person who absolutely cheeses over finding a new bookstore.”
“That’s just who I am.”
“Now imagine that place, but with a banger of a coffee shop attached to it. Noah, I know it could be successful. Who gives a fuck if your siblings would judge you?”
I lean up against the stone wall outside, shaking my head.
“I don’t even think I was ever worried about their judgment. Not really. I just don’t know how to trust myself. I think my ideas are stupid, or something.”
“They’re really not stupid,” he tells me. “And you should fucking go after them.”
I exhale, turning away from him. “Shit, Torin.”
“What?”
I shake my head, looking up at the sky. “You’re being too nice to me. It’s weird. Like snow in the middle of summer, or something.”
“Oh, fuck off. I’m nice. When I want to be.”
“Yeah, but you never usually want to be. Not to me,” I tell him. “I can’t deal with it.”
I feel his arm slide around my waist, pulling me closer to him. “Yes you fucking can.”
His lips land on my cheekbone and I feel like my defenses are getting weaker and weaker, like I’m not going to be able to stop myself from wanting him.
“You don’t have to do this shit for me. The bookstore stuff, and all of it.”
“I know I don’t have to.”
I’m relieved when he kisses me again, because otherwise he’d have to see the look on my face.
I don’t think I could hide it anymore if I tried.
He pushes his legs against mine and kisses me up against the wall, and for the first time ever, I have a picture of the future.
A future.
I can open a store.
It’s an idea, a possibility, and a path I want to go down.
After a lifetime of self-doubt and numbing my senses, it feels like the first time I’m sure of something, even if there are no guarantees.
I’m going to try.
And it’s entirely because there was someone who believed I could. Someone I used to think would rather blow the whole world up than ever see me succeed.
“Thank you,” I murmur against his lips before he kisses lower, onto my neck.
He hums against me, and I start to feel vibrations from his front pocket, pressed up against me.
“Mmm. Either you have a very fun toy in your pocket or your phone is going off.”
“Don’t care,” he says.
“It’s buzzed, like, three times. You sure it’s not something important?”
He sighs against my skin, then leans back.
When he pulls out his phone, I glimpse the screen.
And instantly something feels off again, just like it did this morning.
Roman has called him.
Multiple times.
“Um,” I say as Torin turns the phone away. “Is everything okay?”
“Just a second.”
I frown, watching as Torin looks around, now, scanning the intersection rapidly.
Like he’s looking for something.
Checking for threats.
He moves, and I get a look at a few of the messages on his screen.
Roman: Where are you?
Bookstore, off campus.
Leave NOW.
“Torin,” I tell him, my tone low now. “Can you tell me why you really brought me out of the house today?”
The phone starts buzzing again.
“Fuck,” Torin whispers under his breath.
“Torin—”
“Because I didn’t think it was safe to be at Onyx House,” he finally tells me, reaching out to take my hand again. “And now I’m not sure if it’s safe to be here. I’m going to take this call.”
I swallow past a tightening throat. “Shit.”
“Roman?” Torin answers the phone.
I can hear Roman shouting through the phone.
Torin grips my hand and tugs me down the street, just as I see movement out of the corner of my eye.
It’s an SUV.
Right there, coming down the quiet street, straight toward us.
My senses flood with dread, a cold spike hitting my heart.
“Get in front of me,” Torin says to me, and adrenaline shoots through me as we break into a run.
Torin guides me down the street and my heart is pounding even before the SUV gets close to us.
He leads me down the sidewalk for a few moments before rapidly cutting across a side lawn, running into the narrow alleyway behind the storefronts.
“What’s happening?” I breathe, but Torin just grips my hand harder.
“Talk later. Just run.”
I hear a woman screaming from the direction of the main road, and then a light crunching sound that sounds like a car going over a curb in the wrong way.
I whip around to check behind us and see the front of the goddamn SUV, heading down the extremely narrow walking path we used to cut into the alley.
“They’re right fucking there,” I utter.
“Then move faster,” he shouts, glancing back.
The car is barreling forward at high speed toward us in the alley. A man walks out in an apron from the back of one of the shops, and I watch in horror as he gets hit by one of the side mirrors of the SUV, roaring in pain and gripping his arm as the vehicle speeds past.
“Oh my God.”
“We’re going to have to jump one of these. Understand?”
There are stone walls ahead that line the backyards of private homes. “Okay. Yes. Anything,” I breathe.
There’s too much stimulus right now.
The hum of the engine behind us. The occasional shouting, every time someone on the street sees what’s happening. The guys in the vehicle don’t seem to give a fuck, charging forward and gaining speed on us.
I hear the first gunshot before we hop the fence.
Molten fear shoots through my stomach.
Instantly I look over to Torin, confirming he isn’t hit.
“Tell me you’re okay,” Torin yells.
“I’m fine. Are you?”
“Not hit. We need to jump the third fence on the right. See it? Pink flowers hanging over the edge?”
“Yes,” I utter.
“I’ll use my hands, you hop up on them.”
“Then what about you?” I shout.
“I’m going to have to go around.”
“I’m not going without you,” I scream.
Another gunshot pops behind us, hitting a recycling bin beside me and tearing a hole through it.
“Fuck. The lower fence. Further down,” he says. “Go.”
I use every ounce of adrenaline to propel myself forward.
It’s strange how the gunshots solidify the reality of it in my mind: I might die, but if I do, I’m going to make these fuckers work for it.
But all that keeps flashing through my mind is how it would affect everyone else.
Would the guys be okay, without me?
Would Torin?
“I’m going for it,” I tell him as we approach the shorter fence. It’s easy to hop, and thank fuck we can both make it over on our own.
“Go. Three. Two. One. Jump,” he says.
I push my hands onto the top of the stone and launch myself over. One of the stones is loose and my hand slips a little, twisting my wrist in a bad direction.
“Holy fuck,” I groan, pain searing through my arm.
“Are you okay?”
“I can make it,” I tell him, standing in the back of the yard. “We need to go.”
We cut through the person’s backyard, finding an open fence along the front. Once we’re on the residential street we duck and weave behind hedges, finding a neat row to disappear behind.
“There were no other exits from that alley. They’re going to have to go all the way down to exit. Let’s go to the left, loop to the side, and get onto campus. Roman is there with Maks.”
I keep the pace high even as pain radiates from my wrist.
My lungs are burning.
The sun’s light is overwhelming now, higher up in the sky and beating down on us with intense heat.
Keep going.
Just keep fucking going.
We make it to the end of the street, turn to the side, and take another curving, banked street up toward the side of campus.
And just as I’m starting to think we’ve lost them, I hear tires screeching behind us.
“You can do this, Noah,” Torin says. “The campus entrance is right there.”
My eyes sting.
I feel like my legs can’t keep moving, like I’m going to collapse into a heap on the sidewalk and be gunned down the moment I drop.
The closer we get to campus, the more students are around.
And guilt gnaws at me from the inside, forming a toxic mix with my fear.
They could be killed, because of me.
This can’t be happening.
The road is wider here, and the SUV is able to gain speed. I can see the stone arch that leads onto campus, and the short wall with the Crimson College plaque and seal.
A girl screams beside me as another gunshot comes out.
“Ahead of me. Now,” Torin screams, and it takes me a moment to realize why he’s dropping behind me.
He’s using himself as a fucking meat shield.
For me.
“No,” I tell him. “Don’t do this—”
The next gunshot is close.
Too close.
And when I glance down and see red spilling out of Torin, I lurch in place.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no—”
“Keep going,” he says, still running as best as he can behind me, too. “Just get to the goddamn entrance.”
I see Roman and Maks up there now.
It’s so much red.
Bright red blood, fresh, and pouring from his body.
I’m going to be sick. But I know I have to do what he says, and if I don’t, all of this will only be so much worse.
I run underneath the arch and get behind the barrier wall.
And I watch as Roman’s cousin, Maks, leans over the wall with a gun in hand. He’s hidden between a couple of hedges, out of sight of any passersby.
“Holy fuck,” I whisper.
Maks is steady.
He waits for the exact moment, and then he pulls the trigger.
I look over to see the SUV swerve, immediately hitting a stone wall, then spinning to hit a massive pole.
Maks wasn’t aiming to kill.
He hit the tire.
The pole slams into the driver’s side of the car, destroying it in a shattering crash.
Students are gathering all around now, and the car alarm starts blaring. People are panicking, and many are already calling the police. Some run, some gawk, and all I can do is stare at the blood coming from Torin.
He’s leaned up against the wall, hunched over a little, breathing hard.
His eyes narrow as he nods toward the SUV.
A guy in a scorpion hat swings open the back door, spilling out of the car with a gun loosely held in his hand.
“I never wanted to do this,” he screams in a feral, eerie voice, with a thick Russian accent.
He looks wrong.
I can see his bloodshot eyes even from here, and he looks like he hasn’t had a proper meal in months.
I hear sirens in the distance.
Are they too far?
“What is he doing?” Torin says.
“Roman,” the guy in the scorpion hat roars. “He is fucking dead. Enzo Maletti is dead. Are you happy? You are next.”
I recognize him.
Roman brought him to a party, once.
The front passenger side door of the SUV opens now, too.
Another man steps out.
His face is coated in blood, too, and he brings out a gun and without hesitation, he shoots.
Blood blooms right from the center of the scorpion logo.
He collapses forward and his gun clatters to the ground as he falls.
The police sirens get louder and they arrive right as the man from the passenger seat lowers his gun, drops it, and puts his hands in the air.
“Keep your hands in the air, and don’t move,” they say over a loudspeaker. “Antonio Maletti, you are under arrest.”
It’s not just police.
There’s also an ambulance, and paramedics are already rushing out, looking at Torin. I feel tears stinging at my eyes, and pure relief floods me.
Thank God.
Roman leans over and speaks low near my ear. “We need to leave. Now. Maks and I can’t be questioned about any of this. If that fucking Maletti speaks to the police—”
“Holy shit, Roman. Look.”
As Antonio Maletti turns to the side, he reveals that he already has a massive gunshot wound on his stomach.
Did he hurt himself?
Or did Roman’s young cousin shoot him inside the car?
“Go without me,” I whisper to Roman. “I have to stay with Torin.”
“Are you sure about that?” Roman asks.
“I’m completely fucking positive.”
Roman gives me a nod and takes off with Maks, disappearing back into the campus.
I get into the back of the ambulance with Torin, breathing heavy. The EMS responders have already given him some sort of painkilling sedative, and he’s blinking heavy.
“It’s over,” Torin says to me from the stretcher. “High-five?”
He tries to lift his arm up but I clutch it, putting it back down. “You need to rest.”
“Is your wrist okay?”
“It’s fucked up. Broken, probably. But that doesn’t matter.”
“Kiss me,” Torin mutters.
“Torin. Right now? Howcome—”
“Because you want to. I know you do.”
I lean over and kiss him. Over and over.
Because I want to.
Because he saved me, more than once.
And he’s still saving me, in ways that will stretch into my future, far beyond when all of these wounds will heal.
The back of the ambulance is a bumpy ride. I’m in pain, and the shock of adrenaline is still seeping into my nervous system. Nothing feels real.
But when I look at him, and all he asks me for is a kiss… and then another kiss, and then another, he’s the only thing I see in the world.