Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
WINDER
Acar horn beeped, somewhere very far away, but I wasn’t ready to wake up.
I opened my eyes the smallest I could, but it was still pitch black out.
Definitely not time to get up. Music filtered in through the door, meaning at some point last night a party had started up here, but I couldn’t be bothered to care.
Besides, this was probably the best sleep of my life, next to Blaire. Even my darkest nightmares were kept at bay by my biggest dream come true, lying next to me. I rolled over to pull her against my chest again, to reassure myself that last night had actually happened, and I wasn’t hallucinating.
The space next to me was empty, and where Blaire’s body should’ve been I only grasped sheets.
Now I was awake. I bolted upright, tossing the bedding onto the floor as if Blaire could’ve been hidden by just a thin sheet. Nothing. Nada.
I leapt out of bed, and sprinted to the bathroom. Empty.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
This was why I didn’t sleep. I learned in prison a long time ago that if you let your guard down for even a moment, people would take advantage of your weakness. Last night, I had let my guard down around Blaire.
Now I was stuck wondering if she faked me out, just to leave me behind, or if she was having one of her night terrors. Fuck.
She looked so peaceful when she fell asleep last night, and it made me hopeful that maybe she wouldn’t stir during the night. Obviously, I assumed wrong.
I stumbled into clothes strewn on the floor, flinging open my bedroom door to pulsing music flooding down the hallway. It was hard to know which was louder—the bass, or my heartbeat.
People crowded the living room, in varying stages of fucked up, but I didn’t see Blaire amongst them anywhere. I grabbed the closest person I could by the collar of his shirt, dragging his wide eyes to my face.
“Woman about this tall, red hair, wearing clothes that are too big for her. Have you seen her?”
The man shook his head, trembling, but the woman he was with looked at me with unfocused eyes.
“She pretty?”
I dropped her boyfriend, kneeling next to her so I could hear what she was saying over the music. “Very. Have you seen her? Did she leave?”
She shook her head, leaning back against the couch. “She didn’t leave. But I think your girlfriend went upstairs.”
Oh, thank fuck. The boa constrictor wrapped around my lungs released, and I rose to my feet.
The woman pulled me back down, breath heavy with the smell of vodka. “She was with Leon.”
You had to be fucking kidding me. If she was up there with Leon, I was never sleeping again. I was never letting her out of my fucking sight again, even if it meant chaining her to the shower. What was she thinking, going with Leon? Did she have a death wish?
“You are in so much fucking trouble,” I muttered, taking the old, carpeted steps two at a time.
The further I got away from the living room, the quieter the music got, but it still overwhelmed any other sounds.
No matter how hard I strained my ears, I couldn’t hear anything coming from the bedrooms lining the hall.
I gritted my teeth. Okay. Guess I was going to have to go through them one by one.
I couldn’t stop the thoughts from haunting me as I flung open the first bedroom door. Empty.
Did she go with Leon because she saw something in him she didn’t see in me? Or was she just trying to prove a point?
Bedroom door number two had a couple I didn’t recognize sprawled out on the bed. I walked out, rolling my eyes.
One bedroom and the bathroom left. The bass from downstairs thrummed through my chest, demanding I go faster. Maybe she didn’t want to go with Leon at all, and she was taken from the bed while I fucking slept. I should’ve considered that possibility sooner.
I shoved open the last bedroom door. Empty again. For fuck’s sake.
Standing outside the bathroom door, I took a few deep breaths. The music playing at the party felt like my own personal soundtrack, but also meant I couldn’t hear anything coming through the door.
I tried the doorknob. Locked.
There were two options. One, Blaire needed my help, and I was wasting time. Two, Blaire didn’t need my help, and I was about to get my heart broken. Even if the latter was a risk, I couldn’t afford it to be the former.
I shoved my shoulder into the door, and the old lock splintered, flinging the door open wide.
“Well, fuck.”
No other words were adequate to describe the situation. Because I guessed there was a third option I hadn’t yet considered, which was Blaire, brandishing the knife she’d threatened me with, soaked in blood, and a nearly-dead Leon lying in the bathtub.
Blaire turned around to look at me, her eyes vacant, like they were the other night in the kitchen. My oversized shirt was the only thing she wore. She wiped her hand across her forehead, leaving a smear of bright blood. “I tried not to make a mess.”
I nodded, trying to correctly process the scene in front of me. Hearing about it was one thing. Seeing the girl you’ve been in love with for the last decade slicing up one of your colleagues was another. My hand still gripped the doorknob, unable to let go. “Blaire, baby, what the fuck happened?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t like the way he talked about us. And do you really think he didn’t go and tell Conrad he saw me with you?”
Dropping the doorknob, I reached over to grip her shoulders. My heart lodged inside my stomach. She had done this for us. For me. “Okay, baby, it’s time to come back to me now. Can you do that for me? Focus on my voice, and come back to the real world now.”
Anything could happen when she came to her senses. I wasn’t sure if she had ever processed what she was doing consciously before, and here I was inviting it. Unfortunately for us, we had a mess to clean up, and if we were going to stop this, I needed her to understand the stakes.
She cocked her head, catching a drop of blood with her tongue. That did something to me, watching her like that. Bloodthirsty. Powerful. Fuck. I was hard as a rock, and this was the worst possible time to want to fuck her.
But she called to something primal in me, standing there, soaked in red, morals intact. No. Fucking focus, Winder.
“Listen to my voice. Come back to me. It’s okay. It’s okay to come back. It’s okay to remember.”
For the first time in my life, I hoped like Hell that wasn’t a lie.