Chapter 3
“I will burn her things before I let you have them.” I grip both sides of the door frame with white knuckles.
Juniper pushes past me, unaffected by my attempts at intimidation. She flops down on my leather couch. “Fuck, you’re both so dramatic. I can see why you’re perfect together… She needs clothes, Punk. And a few mementos might help nudge her memory.”
I pinch the space between my brows, staving off a headache. “Please, make yourself at home,” I hiss. “If Roxy wants her shit, she can come get it herself. This is where she belongs. Here, with all of our stuff and all the promises we fucking made to each other.”
Juniper sighs. “She has amnesia. She doesn’t remember anyone. Why are you acting like a psycho?”
“I’m not pissed she lost her memory, Juniper. I’m fucking furious that she’s shutting me out,” I growl back. “I’m not just anyone. I’m the love of her life. She needs to be here. In our home. Then I can make her remember.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “That’s not going to happen. It doesn’t work like that. You’re not a doctor, Punk. Besides, they have police guarding her room because her mom filed a restraining order against you.”
I pick a glass off the table and chuck it across the room. It shatters into a hundred pieces when it hits the hardwood floor. “Fuck,” I yell. “They can’t do this.”
Juniper shakes her head, still unfazed by my tantrum.
This chick isn’t afraid of much. “Get it together, Punk,” she yells back.
“Roxy is alive. That’s what’s important.
Now stop being a big fucking man-baby and get me some of her things.
I need clothes, beauty products, and her laptop.
If she’s ever going to find her way back to us, she needs to have familiar things around her. Things that she loved.”
“She loves me,” I mutter.
Juniper raises a condescending eyebrow at me. She’s right, but I hate every second of this. It feels like my skin is trying to crawl away from my body.
“Fine. But I get to pick everything out. I know what she loved better than anyone.”
Juniper throws her hands up. “Fine. Let’s hurry up though. Her mom’s taking her back home to Crimson Valley tonight.”
Visions of strangling the life out of that wretched woman fill me with a new bloodlust that’s so thick with need I can barely focus. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and count back from ten. As I exhale, Juniper is looking at me like I have two heads.
“I just told you to hurry up. Come on, skater boy, the clock is ticking.” She barrels off toward Roxy’s dressing room. I gave her three walk-in closets, and she still has clothes piled up on two chairs. But I’d give that woman anything.
I watch as Juniper packs a large bag with bras, panties, socks, Roxy’s favorite hoodies, jeans, and her sneaker wedges, the ones she was wearing the night I saved her from that creep at Joystick.
My heart is caving in. Not just breaking. Decaying. Turning to fucking dust.
I stuff her favorite butt plug into the side pocket of the larger bag when Juniper turns her back.
It was the first gift I gave Roxy. She had it deep inside her the night she finally submitted to me.
The night I claimed her and moved her into my penthouse.
Maybe it will trigger some semblance of a memory.
We pack another bag with her gaming console, headset, and controller.
I shove a stack of paperwork in there as well.
“I wrote down all her passwords last night, so she can get into her accounts.” I also wrote her a letter, but Juniper doesn’t need to know that.
It’s no one’s business except mine and Roxy’s.
“Thank you. Just try to chill out for a while. I know that’s not something you’re good at, but Roxy needs to heal. And she can’t do that with you stressing her out.” Juniper heads for the front door, taking pieces of my heart with her in faded duffel bags.
I shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans.
“I’m the only one who knows what she needs,” I rasp.
Tears push at the edges of my eyes again, taunting me.
I can’t breathe without her. Not like before.
I take shallow breaths to keep from dying, but the tightness in my chest remains, reminding me I’m one shudder away from spiraling.
Juniper’s gaze softens. “Give it time. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
Time? Fuck time. I don’t like not being in control. If I’d waited for time, I wouldn’t have gotten Roxy to begin with. No, I make the rules. I call the fucking shots. As soon as Juniper’s gone, I begin packing my own bags.
I will make her remember… or kill us both in the process. There is no Punk or Roxy if we aren’t together.
After I finish packing, I crawl into our bed. The sheets still smell like her. Like us. Fuck. I close my eyes to rest them just for a second. And all I can see is her face.
The best thing about having a fuck ton of money is getting other people to do shit for you. By the time I reach my new house in Crimson Valley, everything has been set up exactly the way I instructed.
I park in the driveway and gaze up at the split-level house. With its green exterior, framed by stone corners, it gives 1970s vintage vibes. But because of its dark history, the realtor was so happy to finally sell it that he didn’t hesitate when I asked him to furnish it before I got here.
Seven years ago, one of the most gruesome murders Crimson Valley has ever seen took place here. I read it took them weeks to clean up all the blood. And it’s been empty ever since.
I can feel the strange energy as soon as I step inside.
But it’s muted by the bright-orange shag carpets and lime-green couches.
The knobs on the doors are vintage, the wallpaper reminiscent of an old TV sitcom, and the air is musty from the windows being closed for so long.
Everything about this house screams retro with an underlying hint of creepy.
But while the decor screams obscenities at me from a disco-laden past, every appliance is equipped with modern technology. From the security system to the state-of-the-art kitchen, it’s more like retro meets futuristic. And it’s fucking perfect.
Striding down the narrow hallway, I pass three bedrooms and two bathrooms. I barely give them a glance. The real draw of this house is waiting behind the orange door at the end of the hall.
I punch the code into the keypad and the door clicks open. The sweet scent of peaches brings a smile to my face. But my stomach twists into knots the second I remember that Roxy isn’t here. Not yet. I jog down the stairs to take a look at my new toys.
The entire back wall is lined with screens, already feeding me surveillance of the entire town. But the footage that matters most is the one that shows me the inside of Roxy’s mother’s house.
With cameras set up in every room, it doesn’t take long for me to scroll through and figure out which one Roxy intends to stay in.
I groan at the sight of it. It looks like nostalgia threw up all over it.
That horrible mother of hers saved mementos from her childhood, creepy dolls and tattered books.
Her comforter might even be the same one she had when she was twelve.
If she thinks this is going to jar Roxy’s memory, she might be more delusional than I thought. The only memories this will trigger are the ones of her being abused. And that’s not the way I want my pretty girl to come back to me.
I murmur to myself, “You’re going to remember how much you crave this when I catch you, pretty girl.”