Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
HIM
The moment the door clicked closed, I twisted the lock and latched the chain in place. No one was getting in or out right now. Then I pivoted on a squeaky heel. My sneakers covered in a mix of bleach and dried blood.
Thank fuck I didn’t have to lick those clean. I could still taste Robbie’s bodily fluids on my tongue, and they sure as shit weren’t as appetizing as his sister’s.
“Tell me I’m wrong, Jules.” I aimed my murderous glare at her.
“Tell me you weren’t keeping shit from me again.
Because unless I’m as dense as that fucker out there…
” I threw an arm towards the window. The curtains drawn tight so that the only one who got to witness the full extent of my irritation was the girl chewing on her bottom lip like looking innocent was going to do her any good.
It wasn’t. We both knew it too.
“Unless I’ve really lost my goddamn mind and all this is a figment of my imagination, unless I’m not just seeing and hearing shit but feeling it too…
” I extended an arm and touched her. “…you didn’t seem all that surprised to find a cop on your front step handing out these.
” I tugged the faded mugshot photo from my pocket, flattened it out as best I could, and shoved it in her face, tapping an index finger against my temple as I closed in on her.
“Am I crazy or does this guy look kinda familiar? And ya know what? His name sounds kinda familiar too?”
Without a word, she ducked under my arm and made a run for it. Leaping over the trash bag I’d dropped in the landing and sprinting up the stairs. I shook my head as I watched her go.
Never made sense to me why people did that in all the horror flicks. Running up the stairs instead of out the back door was no more useful than a rat placing its own tail in a mousetrap. But I wasn’t gonna complain when I was the guy with a rodent problem.
I took the steps two at a time as I chased after her, making it to the bedroom at the same time she tried to slam the door in my face. I grabbed on to the jamb with one hand and pried the door back open with the other while my foot kept her from closing it all the way.
“Will ya stop fucking around,” I grunted as I tracked her from one corner of the room to the next as she pinged like the lights in a pinball machine. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
She didn’t stop moving until she found what she was looking for, spinning to face me with something shiny in her hand, the hot end of a metal barrel leveled at my chest.
On instinct, I raised my arms, palms out, as I slowly inched in her direction. She wasn’t gonna shoot me. At least I didn’t think she was. Then again, I didn’t think she was the type to have a gun either.
Nurse Keller was full of surprises today.
“I just wanna talk, sweetheart,” I tried again. I kept my voice even, much calmer than the pounding in my head, than the throbbing in my dick. I got off on her fear, not on the fact I was two seconds away from having my brains splattered all over the carpet.
I also didn’t know what was good for me any more than she did.
“No, you don’t.” She shook her head.
“Yes, I do.” I drew a lowercase T over my chest with the tip of my finger. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” I grinned. Jules didn’t.
Tough crowd.
I backed up until the underside of my knees hit the mattress, and I dropped down onto the bed. “So were ya ever going to tell me?”
She nodded, her hands shaking so much I was afraid she might shoot me without meaning to.
“How about we put the gun down now, sweetheart.”
“If I do that, you’re gonna leave,” she croaked, tears silently streaming over each of her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away without lowering her arm and nearly succeeded at shooting an eye out.
I extended a hand, gesturing for her to give me the gun. “I’m not gonna leave. Promise.”
She stared at me through watery lashes for a long minute, likely trying to figure out if I was telling her what she wanted to hear or not.
I wasn’t. I meant it when I said I wasn’t gonna leave her. Especially when I realized why she’d run up those stairs. She wasn’t trying to get away from me. She was doing whatever she could think of to keep me here.
I should have felt as trapped as that rat. I should have been doing whatever I could to chew my own tail off. Instead, I was curious.
Probably a little flattered too, if I were being honest. And at least one of us needed to be honest if we had any hope of getting out of this mess without ending up in a pair of matching jumpsuits.
She gently placed the gun in my hand and took a step back.
I didn’t let her take another before I grabbed her wrist and tugged her into my lap.
Cradling her like my mother had never done to me.
Not even as a newborn. Because she was too busy getting high and I was too busy convulsing. But I did my best to fake it.
I could feel someone watching us in the background. Disapproving blue eyes, twisted lips, and a shake of a head. I ignored her. If I kept ignoring her, she’d go away.
“I gotta take care of the trash bag.” I sighed into Jules’s hair when she finally stopped sobbing. She had a little residual blood splatter there. Other than that, she smelled like her shampoo.
“But you’re coming back?” she whispered against my chest.
“Yeah, Jules. I’m coming back,” I told her. “But first I wanna know how fucking long your brother’s been a patient at Briarwood.”