Chapter 3
Jordy
Clay’s fingers bit into my wrist hard enough to bruise as he desperately held onto me. I could see his arms shaking from the strain of holding my weight. There was no way he was going to be able to pull me up onto the safety of the roof.
“Clay,” I said again when I felt his grip slide a bit on my wrist. “It’s okay. You can let go.”
“Fuck off,” Clay spat out through gritted teeth. “I’m not... will you fucking help me!”
I jerked in surprise when he suddenly shouted, nearly pulling myself free from Clay’s grip by accident.
At first, I thought he was talking to me, demanding that I do something, but what could I do?
My feet scraped against the wall, unable to find anything to brace against, and I was too far from the top of the roof for my other hand to reach.
From out of nowhere, a second pair of hands suddenly grabbed onto my arm. These hands were bigger than Clay’s, gripping all the way around my forearm. Someone else had joined Clay, though I couldn’t see who it was as my face was mostly pressed against the wall.
Clay and the other person worked together to haul me back over the edge of the roof, their hands grabbing at my shoulders, my waist, anywhere they could reach. It was the first time in my life I didn’t mind being pawed at, and I gasped in relief when my feet finally touched something solid.
My whole body shook with adrenaline. I had no hope of supporting my own weight and sunk to my knees the second I was safe. For one crazy moment, I was struck with the urge to kiss the concrete floor of the roof, but then I remembered how dirty it was, and the urge faded.
It took me a minute to catch my breath. It felt like I’d run a marathon, though it had probably been less than five minutes since I came up to the roof.
As Clay and the other man waited for me to recover, a whispered conversation passed between them.
“Did you catch whoever pushed him off?”
“No. They were already halfway down the fire escape before we got here. I barely even got a look at their face. At this point, I couldn’t even tell you if it was a man or a woman.”
Great. So, I hadn’t imagined the shove I felt against my back. Someone actually tried to kill me just now.
When I could finally see straight again, and I no longer felt like I was going to throw up, I looked up into the face of my saviors. Clay knelt next to me with a concerned hand on my shoulders, while beside him stood another man I recognized.
“Lo—” My voice cracked, and I had to cough several times before trying again.
“Logan Hollingsworth. What are you doing here?” I looked toward Clay. “What are either of you doing here?”
With a sympathetic smile, Clay helped me to my feet. “We’re here for you.”
Fuck, the man was pretty. I didn’t personally find him attractive—I’d never actually found anyone attractive, which my therapists said was normal for someone in my situation—but I could appreciate beauty when I saw it.
Even scuffed up, with a smudge of dirt on his cheek, Clay glowed with health and vitality.
The little green-eyed monster of jealousy gnawed at my heart again, which I furiously ignored.
“Me? For me? You’re here for me?” I shook my head. “Why are you here for me?”
I must have sounded like an idiot repeating myself so many times like that, but if there was ever a time that sounding like an idiot was appropriate, it was now. I’d just nearly died. Give me a break.
Clay and Logan shared a look, communicating without saying a word. I wasn’t sure how long the two of them had been together, but it must have been a while for them to have developed such instinctual communication.
With a slight nod, Logan took over the conversation for the both of them.
“Have you been keeping track of the bell ringer case?”
That name again.
Why was that name coming up so many times today?
Hearing about it on the news was bad enough, but to be confronted with it directly left me shaking from a whole new wave of adrenaline.
“Not really. Honestly, I don’t want to think about it too much, but I heard that the trial has been put on hold.”
Clay’s hand settled easily on Logan’s hip, like that spot had been made specifically as a place to rest his palm.
The sight of it, this casual intimacy that seemed to come so easily for them, distracted me so much that I almost missed what Logan said next.
“Technically, it’s on hold, but if we don’t come up with some more evidence, we’re probably going to lose the case.”
“Well, we also lost our lawyer,” Clay added. “That’s a problem, too.”
Logan’s hand covered Clay’s on his hip. “Actually, I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet, but I just got a call from Sebastian. Looks like we’ve got a lawyer, after all.”
“Really?” Clay’s voice was excited, but a hint of skepticism remained. “Just like that? Where’d we get a lawyer from so suddenly?”
“Apparently, someone volunteered. I don’t know the details. The others will tell us more about it when we get back.”
“Um…” I hesitated to interrupt them, but they seemed to be getting off track, and none of this was answering my questions.
“I’m glad to hear you’ve got a lawyer now, but what does that have to do with me?
Why are you here? Not that I’m not grateful for you saving me, but shouldn’t you be focusing on your case? ”
Clay’s hand, the one that wasn’t glued to Logan’s hip, rested gently against my arm.
Halfway between shoulder and elbow, the gesture was less intimate than if he’d touched my shoulder, but at the same time it was also softer and more comforting.
The combination was strange, as if he were both pushing me away and pulling me closer at the same time.
“It’s not just our case,” Clay said, keeping his voice as soft as his touch.
“It’s your case as well. It’s the case of everyone who was victimized by those monsters.
The bell ringers have to pay for what they’ve done, so they can never hurt anyone again, but to do that we need more evidence.
We need... we need more witnesses to come forward. ”
Off in the distance, a car horn blared loud enough to make me jump. My nerves were already shot, and the sudden noise put me on the defensive. I instinctively looked around for any threats, and my attention zeroed in on the ground below.
Six stories was a long way to fall. Far enough to reach terminal velocity, which meant that it was almost guaranteed to be lethal.
Someone had tried to make me take that fall. They wanted to kill me, and it almost worked.
Rage coated the back of my throat with a hot metallic taste so thick I nearly choked on it.
I slapped Clay’s hand away.
“You brought them here.”
“Jordy,” Clay started to say, reaching for me again, but I cut him off.
“No, fuck off. They must have known you were coming here. That’s why someone just tried to kill me.” I pointed at Logan. “Hell, they probably know I helped this guy find you in the first place. You’ve practically painted a target on my back.”
My voice shook, and my legs nearly gave out under me as the implication of what I was saying hit me all at once.
It was too many emotions to process. I was angry, but also so very scared. I wanted to scream and cry at the same time.
Clay reached for me again, looking like he was about to cry himself, but I pulled away from him. I fisted my hands in my newly dyed hair as I fought back the tears.
“No. I was done. I graduated. Two years I’ve been here, like a broken and discarded toy that needed to be pieced back together. I’m finally putting it behind me and moving on with my life. You’re not pulling me back into this mess.”
To his credit, Clay didn’t try to touch me again. His voice shook, but he still stood firm as he faced me, confident in himself.
“Look, Jordy, I know it’s difficult, but—”
“No, you don’t,” I cut him off again. Not even sure what I intended to say, I just waved wildly in his direction, encompassing him from head to toe.
“Look at you. A family that never stopped looking for you. A partner that supports you. It’s easy to move on when you’ve got so many people in your corner, but not all of us are so lucky. ”
It was clear that Clay tried to hide his reaction, but I still saw the way he flinched. My words had hurt him.
I should have felt guilty, and I probably would once I calmed down enough to think clearly. At the moment, however, all I felt was satisfaction.
Good. Let him be hurt. Then at least my misery wouldn’t be alone.
The callous thought took me by surprise, and I found that I couldn’t bear to face Clay directly. Turning away from him, I braced my hands on the wall around the edge of the roof, staring down at the six-story fall that had nearly killed me.
I almost wished it had succeeded.
“I don’t remember anything from before the b—” My voice caught in my throat.
Damn. That name was still so hard to say.
Clenching my hand into a fist, I braced myself and forced my lips to bend around that hated word.
“I don’t remember anything before the bell ringers took me. All my life, I did whatever they told me. I put on a smile. I didn’t complain. I even fucking pretended to like what those bastards did to me.”
Something wet hit my fist. Without realizing it, the tears I’d been holding back had started dripping down my face to water the concrete below me. A few even fell over the edge of the roof, landing on the street far below.
“I did all that so they wouldn’t see me as a threat. All for the desperate hope that they’d let me live. And it worked. I got away from them. I survived. I’ve even managed to finally get to a good place, and I did it all on my own.”
I hated crying. My cheeks burned hot, and it felt like my eyes had been coated in a layer of gravel. Wiping the moisture from my cheeks, I bit back a new wave of tears and turned to face Clay and Logan.
It was surprisingly easy to stop crying when I saw them standing there. The sight of their shock and distress caused new fury to well up in my stomach.