35. Juliet
35
JULIET
A n odd sort of numbness has taken over my body as I walk out of the Dionysus Lounge. It reminds me of the night of my eighteenth birthday. All of the emotions that had overwhelmed me after finding Bran and Avery in bed together. Showing up at home just in time to watch my dad be led away in handcuffs. And then there'd been my mom...
Even now as I stride towards the tinted SUV waiting at the back of the parking lot, I can still picture her tear-streaked face. As if that wasn't bad enough, Morpheus had been there. Perfect Morpheus Calloway. Silverwood's savior. My mother's savior. My dad's best friend.
The fucking monster no one ever sees. No one except me.
"Baby?" I nearly jolt at the sound of Lex's voice, and I realize that I've been standing outside of the passenger door of his SUV for ... I don't fucking know how long. Without looking up at the rolled down window, I reach for the door handle.
My fingers close around the black metal and pull. The door pops open and I react with practiced movement, stepping onto the bar beneath the footboards and hefting myself into the interior. I drop my bag next to my feet. My skin tingles with awareness. The cold air. Lex's curious stare. My eyes burn.
No. Not here. I need to hold it in until I'm alone again, until no one will see me break. I turn away from him and reach for the seatbelt.
"Are you okay?"
I go still, my heart thundering in my chest, in my ears. Fingers trembling, I force myself to start moving again, wrapping the belt around my waist and chest and clipping it into place. "Yeah." Lie. "Why wouldn't I be?" Why are you such a fucking liar, Jules?
The soft sounds of Second Chance by Shinedown continue to play across the older radio of the vehicle, turned down so low that I have to strain to hear it. Lex doesn't respond to my words, but neither does he put the car into reverse and start backing up. I keep my eyes fixed forward, staring out of the windshield at the back of the Dionysus Lounge.
"Juliet?" Lex's hand enters my line of sight and I jerk away from it, pressing into the seat at my back.
"Can we please just go?" I demand. Before someone else comes out. I hadn't seen Mads when I'd gone to get my things, but that didn't mean she isn't still inside, and I fear if I see her now, it'll shatter my resolve.
"Did something happen?" Of all the times for Lex to be concerned, now is really the worst one to choose. I don't want to have to beg, but I will if that gets me away from here faster.
" Please. "
His hand stills, not quite touching me, but hovering over my thigh as if he wants to. Then, without another word, it disappears—retracting back out of my line of sight. A moment later, the car rolls backward, and I can breathe even again. For now.
Cold air blows into the cab and continues to do so, turning my already cool skin to something akin to ice. Finally, Lex hits a button and the passenger window rolls up, cutting off the fresh scent of wet grass and dusty pavement. For several long minutes, the only sound is that of the nearly mute radio as it changes from Shinedown to Three Days Grace and then Breaking Benjamin. Turning away from the man at my side, I breathe through my teeth and lean into the glass of the now closed window.
The vehicle moves forward, and I close my eyes, pretending that it's taking me somewhere else. Not back to Silverwood, but somewhere far the fuck away from here. From Ma-Ri and Mads and the Scorpion Kings and ... everything else.
I must be exhausted because I fall asleep and wake sometime later with the realization that we're no longer moving. There's no bumping sound of the SUV avoiding potholes and even the quiet radio has been shut off completely.
"You're awake."
Lifting my head, I stop resisting the urge to look to my side. Lex is little more than an outline of shadow in the darkness. He sits in the driver's seat, backlit by the moonlight pouring in through the windows around us. I reach for my seatbelt, and he doesn't speak again as I unbuckle it and take in our surroundings.
"Where are we?" I ask, noting the absence of buildings and familiar surroundings. In fact, I have no fucking idea where we are.
Woods as far as the eye can see span several miles in front and behind the SUV and along either side from where he's pulled off a back road. I shiver and realize that the radio isn't the only thing he's turned off. The SUV is off and so, too, is the heater. It's been like that for a long time, I surmise at the goosebumps that creep along my arms as I close them around myself and huddle against the seat.
I should be afraid. Lex isn't my friend. He's done strange things before, made me question my own sanity. Somehow, though, I can't work up the energy to be frightened. What would be the point? Everything bad that could ever happen to me has already happened.
My nose twitches and my eyes begin to burn again. Everything bad that could ever happen to me has already happened. The words repeat in my head, a reminder, a revelation. It was never a dream. It was real. I...
A noise erupts from my throat—a cross between a hiccup and a sob. I clap a hand over my mouth and hunch inward. Fuck. Goddamn it. Not yet. I'm not alone.
"Juliet."
I shake my head, turning away from Lex and fumbling for the handle. I can't breathe here. I can't. I fucking can't...
"Juliet!"
A curse slips free, but thankfully—blessedly—the door opens, and I practically fall out of the vehicle, hitting the hard ground with a painful thump . I groan as both my knees throb, but don't let that minor ache stop me from getting back to my feet. Pressing a hand into dirt and gravel, I leverage up and stumble away from the SUV as Lex's driver's side door swings open behind me. The squeal of hinges and metal causes my heartbeat to increase, and I move faster.
I have to get away. I need to—I need to?—
A scream rockets up my throat as thick, muscled arms close around me and drag me back against an equally muscled chest. Kicking back, I lash out. I throw my body forward, clawing at the arms holding on to me.
"No!" I scream and scream, bucking and kicking and scratching. All of the training Cory had poured into me disappears. All of the repetitive movements of self-defense that he'd hammered into my head evaporates and once again, I'm nothing more than a pretty girl in a bad fucking situation. "No." Not again. I can't do it again.
"Juliet, calm down." I hear the male voice at my back, but I don't follow its command. "It's me!" he yells. "Fuck—baby, please ."
I sob. The tears I'd tried so fucking hard to hold back springing forward until there's no denying them anymore. I scream and cry and beg to be set free. The arms never ease their grip. Instead, they hold me tighter, impossibly slow. Then, the world tilts and I'm dropping down, closer to the Earth until I can feel grass under me again and I realize we're rocking. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Slow hums and mumbles penetrate my hazy mind. I hiccup, gasping for breath as cold air whips against my wet cheeks. I'm shaking all over, my limbs jerking and seizing as I'm forced to lean forward several inches and then gently pulled back again.
It takes me far too long to realize that it's Lex's doing. He's on the ground and I'm splayed over his lap as he rocks the two of us back and forth, his voice quiet and soft as he murmurs to me. I suck in a breath and then another and another, the racing thudding of my own heart easing out of my ears and returning to my chest where it belongs.
Throat raw, face stinging, I go still. No more fighting. No more screaming. No more sobbing, even if tears continue to streak down my face.
"You're okay. It's okay. I'm here. You're okay, baby. I'm here." Lex's words penetrate my thick skull until I finally actually hear the words he's speaking. I grit my teeth as fresh tears fill my eyes and I try and fail to blink them away.
How the fuck is someone who should hate me saying everything that I needed to hear from those that were supposed to love me?
"I'm here with you. You're okay, baby. You're not alone. I'm here. You're gonna be okay." He continues, repeating the words over and over again as if he doesn't quite realize yet that I'm no longer struggling against him. My hips hurt and I glance down, gasping when I see the long scratches of red on the arms still bound around me.
Lex's words pause. "Baby?"
I bite down against the urge to defend myself, to demand to be released. I ... hurt him. I hurt Lex and he ... let me? Why would he do that?
Lex turns me in his arms, using his strong hold to keep me balanced on his lap as one arm remains around my back and the other slides my legs to the side. Dark eyes the color of the clouds overhead stare down into my face. There's something deadly in his eyes, and yet, when he looks at me, I feel like I'm the only thing he sees. Not just my exterior, but deeper—into the crevices that I hide from even myself.
One hand lifts, and he pauses when my instinct forces me to flinch away. "I..." His brow creases. "I won't hurt you, baby," he whispers. "I just want to touch you. Can I touch you?"
Can I touch you? It’s a request, a question. It's not Let me touch you , a demand, an order. Somehow, because of that difference, I manage to bob my head in a silent ascent. His hand draws closer, palm cupping my cheek.
I release a pent-up breath and he bends his head, our foreheads brushing. We sit like that for several long moments. Nothing but the sound of crickets chirping in the grass and a bird fluttering above our heads somewhere in the woods.
"Where are we?" My voice, when I speak, sounds choked and raw. Probably because of my screaming. I don't know how loud I was, but I'm glad we're nowhere near civilization right now.
"Away," he whispers back. "You didn't seem like you wanted to go home, so I took you ... away for a little bit."
I bite down on my lower lip as it begins to tremble, a warning sign that I'm about to start crying again. I don't speak for a long while, my throat too tight to formulate sound as I rest against him, skin to skin with his hands holding me still. They no longer feel confining. If anything, it feels like the only thing keeping me grounded to the earth is Lex's touch.
When Lex attempts to release me and move back, I lean forward, pressing myself into him. I've never needed touch like I do right now, and though I'm more than shocked that the desire to be held is focused on him, I don't question it. I'm tired of questioning myself and of pretending like I don't crave to be just like every-fucking-body else. I wish this were easy for me, but it's not.
With a sigh, I collapse against Lex's chest, and though he stiffens in surprise, it's not long before his arms come around me. There's an image in my mind of what we must look like. It's fuzzy and unclear, but not ... unwelcome.
He's warm against my side, and his arms don't stray from my back or sides. He doesn't reach for one of my breasts or lower to my ass. Not the way Bran inevitably would.
"You don't want to talk about it."
My lashes flutter open, making me realize that in the silence, I'd closed my eyes. Lex doesn't speak again. He waits for me. Has anyone else ever waited for me to talk? It doesn't feel like it. If they have, it's only because they wanted something from me. An answer. A reveal. A secret that isn't theirs to demand.
Lex doesn't push, though. He remains silent after proving that he does, in fact, know me. Because he's right, I don't want to tell him why I had this breakdown. I don't want to talk about it—not with him and not with anyone else. If given half a choice, I'd stuff this back into the cold, dark box in the back of my mind where it belongs and leave it there to rot.
"You don't have to," he quietly informs me sometime later.
I lift up and look at him. "Are you serious?"
He doesn't look away. "Of course."
My brow puckers. "I..." My eyes move down to the arm stretched across my lap and the deep grooves I scratched into his skin. Guilt eats away at my insides. "I'm sorry."
"Hey." Lex grasps my chin and tips my head up once more until our eyes are locked and there is no looking away. "You have nothing to be sorry for."
I touch his arm, tracing the pads of my fingers down the marks I made in my panic attack. Homeless. Jobless. Tonight was a culmination of so much and I didn't see it coming. The tidal wave of emotions had swamped me before I'd even known it was coming and all at once, I was back there again. In the past and there was no escape.
"I'm still sorry," I whisper.
Lex sighs, the action making his chest heave up and down, pressing against me. "How about this," Lex offers. "If you ever want to talk, you'll come to me?"
My back tenses. "What if I don't ever want to talk about it?"
He shrugs. "Then you don't."
I eye him suspiciously. "That seems too fucking easy."
Lex releases my face, but he doesn't need to hold me in place anymore. I stare back at him willingly, meeting his gaze with nothing between us. "Nothing in life is easy," he tells me seriously. "But I can try to make it better for you however I can. Right here, though?" He dips his head, smoke-colored eyes boring into me. "Right now? All I need to know is one thing."
My throat clamps tight. No. I can't tell him. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I don't care if that means my monster remains free and my nightmares continue. It's hard enough to admit it to myself. Through glass coated insides, I respond anyway. "What's that?"
His eyes never leave mine. "Do I need to kill anyone?"
I cough, surprise shocking me out of the automatic lockbox I'd been slowly sending my emotions back to. "What?"
"Do I need to kill anyone?"
I gape at him. "You can't be serious." Lex's expression doesn't change, doesn't shift. He merely stares back at me waiting for an answer. "No!"
He sighs and leans back against what I realize is the back tire of his SUV. "Fine," he mutters. "But if you ever need me to, you tell me."
"You're fucking insane."
The grin he offers me morphs his face from one of a serious gangster offering his dark services to one of a handsome teenage boy. Fuck me. Both kind of turn me on, and that's more surprising than I'd thought it would be. Honestly, after everything I've been through, I'd have thought that attraction and arousal were things beyond me now. Those kinds of emotions should be tainted.
"So are you," Lex reminds me, leaning forward and nudging my cheek with his nose. "Or did you forget that I've already gotten rid of a body for you. I'd do it again."
I stare at him for a long moment. "You ... mean that, don't you?"
His lips press a kiss to my jawline. "Yes."
A shiver skates down my spine, and I wrap my fingers around the arm in front of me to keep myself from reaching for him in another way. My body and mind are at war. One side trying to remind me that we just had a mental breakdown, and the other not giving two shits.
"Take the offer, baby," Lex murmurs, drifting his lips up my jaw to my cheek and then to my ear. I swallow, tightening my grip on him. "Take my gifts. Take something ." He practically begs in that low, sexual tone. "Take everything ."
"Why?" The word chokes out of me as he takes the lobe of my ear between his teeth and gently bites down. The sharp point of his canine worries the skin and I gasp, my thighs clenching together.
If Lex answers me, though, it's drowned out by the renewal of my pounding heart. Last time my emotions overwhelmed me and I shut them off, it took me weeks if not months to turn them back on. But Lex has chased away the fear in a matter of minutes and replaced it with warmth. My eyes slide shut as he releases my ear and presses a kiss to my cheek again.
Then, his mouth is on mine and I cave to my body's desires. I kiss him back.