Chapter 49 Dex - Past
forty-nine
Dex - Past
REAPER.
Jonah’s car was already in the driveway when I pulled in and killed Delilah’s engine.
I hoped he had actually taken the chance to see Becca and hadn’t lied to me just so I wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving him.
He hadn’t tried to call or text me while I’d been gone, and I was almost disappointed by that.
I liked when he was needy. It made me feel wanted.
Inside, it was quiet and dark. I went straight for the guest room, our room for the foreseeable future, and found the lights already off. The low light through the window from a distant streetlamp outlined the shape of Jonah beneath the covers on the bed. My home.
I stripped off quietly, unsure if he was already sleeping and secretly hoping he wasn’t as I slid in beside him. This bed was softer than mine, and far more spacious, but I still slotted my body along his like we were magnets.
Jonah was tense, his breathing a little fast. A few lingering kisses over the curve of his neck and he melted back into me. His hair was damp, and he smelled like apples. I much preferred when he smelled like me.
“Did you keep your bandages dry when you showered?” I whispered, knowing he was awake, even if he seemed intent on pretending otherwise.
He nodded, pushing back against me.
“Are you okay, baby?”
There was a long pause before he answered me. “Yes.”
“It’s okay if you’re not. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Just… be honest with me?”
Another pause. “I’m okay. We’re okay. We’re… safe.”
He spoke quietly, his words not exactly a question but still sounding on the edge of one.
“We’re safe,” I promised him.
“I love you,” he answered. “So much.”
“I love you too, baby. More than anything.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what.”
Jonah relaxed into me further, and I kissed along the skin at his neck and shoulders. My fingertips traced patterns over the bare skin of his sides and his stomach until his breathing deepened and he fell asleep. I followed him shortly after.
It was early when I stirred awake again at the movement beside me. Jonah wriggled out of my arms and out of bed.
“Okay?” I grumbled, my voice sleep-deepened.
“Yeah. I just… I want to go for a run.”
My brows pulled together, and I attempted to chase the remnants of sleep away as I rubbed my eyes. Jonah rarely woke up before me, and he certainly didn’t go for runs.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he answered too quickly. “I just want some fresh air.”
“Baby—”
“I’m fine, Dex. I just want to go for a run.”
“But… your leg.”
“You think I don’t know about my leg? Trust me, I fucking know, but I’m going to try. Okay?” Jonah huffed.
I had no idea what was going on with him, but I didn’t like it.
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. I want to go alone.”
Something twisted in me, some dark urge, similar to panic but not quite.
I didn’t want him to do anything alone. Didn’t want him to push me away like he seemed intent on doing.
I preferred when he was unreasonable and wouldn’t even let me go to work without him coming with me. Because that was honest.
“Talk to me.” My voice sounded more pleading than I intended, but it reached him, and conflict clouded his features.
“I will. Just let me go clear my head, and we can talk when I get back.”
I fought the urge to grab at him, to hold him to me until whatever this distance was faded away. “I have something I want to give you,” I said instead.
His eyes flicked to the door, as if he was desperate to escape. I didn’t give him a moment to try, pulling back the covers and heading for my jacket.
I found what Harper had given me in the pocket, and clutched it tightly in my fist as I brought it over to Jonah, offering him my most precious possession.
“Your father’s lighter?”
“I want you to have it.”
His eyes were wide when they snapped to mine. “Why?”
“I lost it once, Rabbit, and you brought it back to me. It’s safer with you.”
Tears beaded and fell faster than I could process, and then his arms were around me. Like a vise. Emotional. Desperate. Not leaving even an inch of space between us. I held him back the same way. My hands smoothed over his back until he loosened his hold on me long moments later.
“Sorry,” he sniffed, as he wiped the dampness over his cheeks away with the back of his hand.
“Hey.” I captured his face in my hands. “Don’t say sorry. I always want to know what you’re feeling. Don’t hide from me.”
Jonah nodded, and my lips pressed against his. His pressed back a moment later.
“You want to talk about what’s going on?” I asked him when we parted again.
He nodded. “When I get back?”
“Okay, baby.”
I hadn’t told Jonah about the tracker in the lighter, maybe I would when he got back and we talked out whatever was going on with him.
I hadn’t intended for it to track him. After Mason had stolen it I just needed to make sure I’d never lose it again.
Still, Jonah had been a little unpredictable lately, so having it on him gave me extra peace of mind when things were so unstable in our world.
We both dressed for the day, and Jonah set off on his run. I only hoped it would help him the way he seemed to believe it would, and not make him feel worse about his injury and limitations.
Roy was in the kitchen, scowling at the contents of the fridge like they’d betrayed him.
“Alright, old man?”
He grunted in response, closing the door again. “Ain’t got enough to make breakfast.”
“So we’ll just eat leftovers.”
“That ain’t breakfast. And don’t think I didn’t notice neither of you ate dinner.”
I shrugged one shoulder. “We’ll eat it when Jonah gets back.”
Roy looked me over, hands moving like they were looking for something productive to do until they rested on his hips. A beat of silence, and then, “I’ll just go pick something up.”
“It’s fine, Roy,” I huffed.
“I’ll not be long.” He was already grabbing his keys off the counter.
I knew what he was doing—trying to be useful and helpful when he had no idea what we were going through, or what to do about it. Who was I to tell him how to care?
“I’ll be here.”
Roy nodded, and then he was off too.
With nothing to do but wait, I pulled my phone from my pocket to call Raven and check in on anything new she might have heard. Only, when I glanced at the pixelated screen, I saw I’d already missed several calls from just about the last person I would have expected. Reaper.
Knowing that bastard wouldn’t have reached out to me unless it was absolutely necessary, I called him back first.
“What?” came his abrupt voice as soon as he picked up.
“You’re the one who called me, like five times. You tell me what.”
“You’re alive, then.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Thought maybe you weren’t. Fire and everything.”
Fire? This wasn’t a conversation to have over the phone. Not when the police were already scanning through Archer’s connections and the Strays.
I couldn’t leave here to discuss it with him, though, not when Jonah might return at any moment and need me to be here for him.
With a sigh, I gave Reaper my current address. Later, I’d apologize to Roy for not asking him first. I’d tell him everything, and if he decided it was too much and kicked us out again, then I’d deal with that.
Reaper arrived much faster than I expected, and not alone. Toby was with him, shifting from foot to foot behind him, his eyes locked on the house next door. The two Strays I trusted and liked least.
Better get this over with. I turned and stalked toward the kitchen, and they followed.
“What’s this about a fire?” I asked as I fiddled with Roy’s coffee machine.
There was a sharp sensation in my lower back, pressure applied and then released. It sparked like electricity, a thousand tiny pinpoints that all caught flame until it was searing. When I reached for the area, my fingers came away wet.
“This isn’t what we fucking talked about, Reaper.” Toby’s panicked voice came from further in the room.
“I’m done talking.”
I stumbled as I turned to face them, my eyes dipping to the knife in his hand, red with blood. My blood.
He’d stabbed me.
Adrenaline unlike any I’d ever known released in my system like a bomb. My eyes darted to the dish rack. Reaper tracked it, and launched at me as I went for the chef’s knife.
Another surge of heat in my side, but then I had it.
My blade swiped through the air, catching fabric as he barely dodged it.
I knew I was fighting at a disadvantage.
If I had any hope of coming out of this alive, I needed to overpower him, and I needed to do it quickly, before the blood loss and the pain slowed me down.
The searing pain in my back and side grew, molten heat spreading as I dove for him. More heat to my shoulder, but I got him this time, my steel coming away as wet as his.
“Fucking do something, Jackal, you worthless piece of—”
I threw myself at him, the weight of my body sending us both to the ground, my knife in his bicep, his knife embedded in my thigh. That one hurt more. Still the fucker wouldn’t let it go. He wrenched it free, plunged it into the same spot, and I roared in agony.
Instinct propelled me back before he could do it again, but the shift gave him the upper hand and he swung his leg up. His knee collided with my burning, bleeding side.
I fought just to take air into my lungs as he knocked me sideways and followed closely, straddling me. There was a wet crunch as his knife carved through my flesh to grate against the bone in my forearm, and my hand spasmed. My blade clattered to the ground. Reaper grabbed it—tossed it behind him.
“You think you’re so fucking good, Coyote.
” He panted above me, more light in his eyes now than I’d ever seen in them before.
“Fucking slept your way to being Archer’s right-hand man.
Jumping in to take his place the same day he goes missing.
You think we’ll all follow you blindly? No, we don’t need you.
I’ll lead the Strays, and I’ll make them stronger than you ever could. ”
I should have listened to Jonah. Should have abandoned the Strays and left them to figure it all out on their own. Then I could’ve been with him. Only him. He was all that mattered, and now I was going to die because I’d hesitated.
“I don’t want the fucking Strays.” My eyes remained focused on the knife in his hand. My only hope now was to talk him out of the killing blow. “I never did. I was going to leave.”
“Lies from a coward,” Reaper sneered.
“Reaper.” Toby’s voice came from somewhere beyond my line of sight. Small and panicked.
“You’re done, Dex. Enjoy hell.” His blade rose, ready to plunge.
“Reaper!” Toby shrieked.
Then Reaper’s eyes went wide as his breath was knocked out of him. His body jolted once. Twice. Three times. Blood trickled from the corners of his mouth and he fell forward, landing over me.
Only for a moment. The weight disappeared just as fast. His body was yanked to the side, and my rabbit was on him. With the chef’s knife in his hand, he plunged it into Reaper over and over.