Chapter 13 #2
They’re on each other in a second. The music drowns out the man’s shouting. Chase’s fist meets his face with a sickening crunch, shattering his glasses on the first punch. He grabs the man by the hair and slams his head into the urinal once, twice, three times.
Crack.
The sound of his skull breaking makes my stomach turn.
I watch dark red blood mix with yellow urine, my mouth hanging open, my legs trembling, my heart hammering.
He slams the man’s head into the urinal one last time, and something makes a wet, splintering crack. The sight makes me want to vomit. The sound of bones breaking drags up a memory of hard candy crunching under teeth.
Chase hooks his hands under the arms of the rigid body. The moment he shifts him, an opened vein spurts blood everywhere like a garden hose spraying water. Chase freezes for a beat, lips pressed tight, eyes shut. Blood runs down his face and over his lips in glinting rivulets.
“It didn’t get in your mouth, did it?” I ask, disgust knotting in my throat. He shakes his head and hauls the body into one of the stalls, then sits it on the toilet. He closes the door and steps to me.
“Are you okay?” I don’t answer. He gives me a gentle shake. “Grace.”
“No,” I rasp. An icy chill runs down my spine, and the blood freezes in my veins.
My face goes pale, blank. I’m dizzy—like I’m being thrown against the walls of my own mind.
My vision blurs and I almost collapse. “They’ve found us,” I whisper, tears in my eyes.
He cups my face in both hands, stroking my cheek with his thumb.
“No one can hurt you,” he repeats in a deep voice.
The first tear slides down my face and catches on my slightly parted lips. He pulls my head to his chest and holds me tight.
“No one can hurt you,” he repeats in a deep, resonant voice. “You’re mine, Grace. And I protect what’s mine.”
I sob and bury my face in his neck. A wave of adrenaline surges through my veins so hard you could ride it like a surfboard.
“Why?”
Maybe this isn’t the ideal time or place to talk about it, but I need to hear it.
Goddamn it—I want it to be real. I want Chase to step out of the daydreams I’ve been clinging to for four years.
To tear through all the stupid arguments I’ve built up against him, to knock down the walls and steal my heart.
To show me he wants me outside that dark underground den, too.
“Because when I look at you, I want more. When it comes to you, I always want more. I want your dreams, your future—you. But now we must get out of here,” he says gently.
He brushes my hair out of my face and looks deep into my eyes.
I can see the infinite whirlpool of his dark soul—the one that pulled me under when I was fifteen and never let me surface again.
My soul isn’t like his. Mine is a field of flowers that smell like balm.
Beside him, I can almost believe I’m not defective, not lacking…
because he makes me whole. Somehow, his presence feeds mine.
I don’t remember how we got out without anyone noticing, our clothes smeared with blood and bits of brain. But then we’re in the car, driving south. We make a small detour before spending the night in a motel.
I thought we’d meet Lucas or one of his men in some remote, dark, eerie place. Instead, we’re rattling down a bumpy dirt road dotted with tufts of grass, going nowhere. The car shakes me like an angry washing machine.
“Why did we come here?” I ask, glancing at the man beside me.
He shifts into park, then kills the engine.
He doesn’t answer—just stares into the distance.
I follow his gaze, and the moment sweeps me so completely my mind goes blank.
I get out of the car without thinking about the danger.
I don’t wait for him to check whether the area is safe.
My feet stumble clumsily through the clearing. The moon hangs in the sky, spilling silvery light across the ground. The night is cold, yet everything is bright. Exhaustion and adrenaline make me tremble, but they don’t stop me.
“Slow down!” He catches my hand. “The trail leads to a drop-off.”
I swallow, a thrill rushing through me, then wipe my sweaty palms on my trousers. We walk to the edge of the drop-off in slow steps, hand in hand. A swing stands there—alone, forlorn. I feel at home in this solitude, in the cold jaws of death.
“You used to like swings.”
The garden swing hangs from an iron frame on chains. The seat and backrest are made of rough, unfinished wood. This swing wasn’t built to be comfortable—or to give pleasure.
It was made for people who yearn for solitude, who feel alone in the world, who want to marvel at the uplifting moment of death.
“I used to,” I admit softly. “With my parents, in our garden. This hurts, Chase. It hurts to think about it.”
He sits down and pulls me with him. I don’t resist—I straddle him. I fist my fingers in his shirt and bury my flushed face in his neck. The swing starts moving with a creak. I press closer, chasing his warmth.
“Why don’t we talk about it? Why do we pretend like nothing happened?”
“Talk about what?”
“Everything. Why didn’t you tell me they were dead?”
“I didn’t want to break you any more than you already were.”
“You thought I’d never get out.”
“Yeah.”
I rest my head on his shoulder as silent tears run down my face.
“I miss them so much. When I ran away, I thought they were still alive, waiting for me. But no one was. I had to move into an old farmhouse full of mice. My siblings were living in filth. We were cast aside by a bitter life.”
“We were angry and disappointed. Then one day Bobby Delgado showed up with his gang. Nikky was in love with him, but she wasn’t enough for him.
Nikky didn’t believe me. She shoved me straight into his jaws.
They were the ones stealing Jamie’s dope—Lucas’s dope—and Lucas shot Jamie right in front of me. Even though it wasn’t Jamie’s fault.”
I stop for a moment—the memories are tearing me apart.
The silence drags on.
This sticky darkness, this quiet emptiness—it feels like the calm before a storm, when the world goes silent for a second and the dark sky presses down, smothering my bleeding heart in the pain of the past.
“That’s why you went after them that day, isn’t it? You were in touch.”