Chapter 39 Jonah - Past
thirty-nine
Jonah - Past
CHOICES.
When I woke up, the room was still dark.
Shadows enveloped our surroundings, the furniture only discernible by its faint outlines from the moonlight streaming in through the uncovered window.
It meant we had more time together before the world woke up and he had to leave this bed, only when I shuffled back to find Dex, he wasn’t there.
The sheets were still warm on his side, but he wasn’t there. Shards of ice sliced through my chest, and suddenly I was wide awake, ripping off the blankets, determined to find him.
The rest of the house was dark. He wasn’t in the bathroom, and I stumbled down the stairs without bothering to even put clothes on first. The front door was slightly open, and as I approached, the sound of his voice on the other side already had the ice embedded between my ribs melting. He was still here. He hadn’t left.
I took a deep steadying breath before approaching, wondering who he was talking to.
“Whoa there, calm down, little Snake Prince.”
Little Snake Prince? I stalled in place.
A new kind of cold spread through my core.
Who the fuck was he talking to? My gut twisted with adrenaline.
I stepped a little closer to the door, trying to hear better.
Through the gap I could see him; his back was to me as he faced out over the blackness of the front yard. He was alone with his phone to his ear.
“Okay, stop. Don’t say anything else. I said stop… Okay. Breathe in deep and just listen for a second. Do not tell me any more details right now. Do not tell anyone any details right now. Don’t call anyone else. Just tell me where you are and explain when I get there. Got it?”
What the actual fuck was going on?
“Okay. I’ll be there in an hour. Stay put and stay quiet… Okay… I’ll see you soon.”
He hung up the phone, and I darted backward, away from the door and back into his room. By the time he came back in, I was pacing, and it felt like there were bugs under my skin making me all kinds of itchy.
“Hey, you’re awake. So—” he began, but I immediately cut him off.
“Who the fuck is Snake Prince?” He stared at me instead of answering, so I continued. “Seriously, Dex? Little Snake Prince?”
“He’s just a friend,” he explained slowly, softly. I hated it. “Just one of the Strays, Rabbit.”
“Who is he? What’s his real name? And what the fuck is he doing calling you at three a.m.?”
“Like I said, he’s a Stray.”
“Why. Was. He. Calling. You?” I said, clapping my hands between each word impatiently. Dex might have been trying to stay calm, but I wasn’t, and I wouldn’t be until I had fucking answers.
“He needs my help with something.”
“With what?”
“Stray stuff. Does it matter?”
“I don’t fucking know, Dex. What do you think? He’s calling you of all people in the middle of the night when he’s upset, and you’re just going to leave me and take off to go help him? Why can’t he call someone else?”
Dex sighed, taking a deep breath in as if seeking composure. I hated that. Hated that he was masking himself from me. “He doesn’t trust anyone else with this. He just… broke something. Something important. He needs me to come help him fix it.”
“Why you?” I pressed again.
“Because, Jonah! Just because!” The mask of calmness cracked.
“Because things are happening. Things I’m involved with that I don’t want to put on you.
Archer isn’t reliable anymore, so people are looking to me instead.
” He spoke as he crossed the room to his dresser, pulling the top drawer out so harshly that the handle broke off.
Dex grunted and tossed the handle across the room, causing it to collide with the far wall.
He pulled out the first dark shirt he found and pulled it over his head.
“You’re seriously leaving? You’re just going to go and leave me?”
“I have to, Rabbit. Something bad happened, and I need to fix it. I’m the only one who can fix it. I’m sorry.”
Panic clawed up my chest. “No. You can’t go. You can’t leave me. What if I need you too?”
Dex sighed. “Then call me and I’ll come back. But you’re okay. Just stay here in bed and I’ll be back soon.”
“That’s it? You’re not even going to explain where you’re going?”
“I have explained.”
“You haven’t told me shit. Not who you were talking to, not where you’re going, and certainly not fucking why.”
Dex grunted instead of responding. He grabbed his jacket from the top of the clothes pile we’d left before stumbling into bed hours ago, and slipped it on.
“I’m coming with you,” I told him, crossing my arms over my chest.
“No. You aren’t.”
“Yes, I am. Unless you can tell me what’s actually going on. Why are you keeping secrets from me?”
He sighed and crossed the room toward me. Large warm hands cupped my arms just below my shoulders, gentle for a moment before I shrugged him off and took a step back. I glared at him expectantly, waiting for him to explain.
“I’m not keeping any of my secrets from you, Rabbit.
Ask me anything about me, and I’ll tell you.
But this isn’t my secret, and I don’t even know the details yet, okay?
” His voice was soft when he spoke to me, and I hated that more.
I wished it wasn’t. I’d rather he yell at me if he wasn’t going to tell me what I wanted to know.
At least then it would feel like a fight and not me one-sidedly losing my shit. “I’ll be back in a few hours. So wh—”
“Don’t go.”
He sighed and stepped closer to me, reaching for me again. “I have to.”
Like before, I shrugged him off, his arms dropping as my fists clenched in rage. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t just tell me what the fuck was going on. Why couldn’t I come too? And most importantly, who the fuck was little Snake Prince?
“If you leave now, don’t bother coming back.”
Dex’s jaw clenched. “I live here, Jonah. If you don’t want to see me, you’re the one who has to leave.”
There was rage in my veins instead of blood. I didn’t fucking want him to go anywhere if it wasn’t with me. I didn’t want him to know people I didn’t know. I didn’t want anyone to need him. Because I needed all of him. He was mine. Every part. Mine. “Don’t go.”
“Get some sleep, Rabbit. I’ll be back before you wake up.”
Dex reached for me again, but this time instead of shrugging him off, I shoved at him.
Before I gained any distance between us, his own larger hands were wrapped around my wrists and he used the hold to yank me forward, causing me to stumble and fall right into his firm chest. His shirt smelled of cheap detergent, and him, and I hated how much just the scent of him calmed me down.
His arms were wrapped around my shoulders before I could pull away, and he held me close as he dropped a firm kiss to the top of my head.
“I won’t be long,” he repeated. “I’d like it if you were still here when I got back. ”
“I won’t be.” I pulled away, turning my back to him as he sighed and collected his keys, wallet, and lighter.
He left without saying anything else. I listened to the sound of him walking down the stairs, the shuffle of him putting his boots on, and then the door closing. His bike started up and sped off.
My eyes burned. Rage pulsed through me, looking for a destination.
Looking for destruction. He’d seen what had happened to me yesterday when he left me alone.
He’d seen that, and he still left now. Granted, he hadn’t lied to me this time first, but he hadn’t exactly told me the truth about what he was doing either.
Part of me wanted to go after him, to take the car he’d given me and follow him to see what it was he was really doing, who the fuck little Snake Prince was.
It wasn’t just him. He’d had another phone call before—“little Cupid, my favorite stray.” Who the fuck were these people?
Why did they need him? Why did he let them need him?
Were they really just friends, or had he fucked them before too? Did they know him like I knew him?
I screamed, grabbing the lamp from beside me and hurling it across the room. It crashed, and for a brief moment I felt better, the sound echoing something inside me as it shattered, but then it was gone and I felt worse.
Why did he need other people? Why couldn’t it just be me?
What happened if shit hit the fan? If the police somehow found out it was me and Henrik at that crime scene?
Would he really run away with me? Or would he stay and protect his precious Strays?
Maybe they meant more to him than I did.
If it came down to it, and he had to choose between them and me, would he really choose me?
Fuck him. I’d been serious. He didn’t believe me, obviously, but I was. I wasn’t going to be here just waiting around for him to get back.