41. Nash
FORTY-ONE
NASH
"See y’all later. Oh, and Flagg, don’t forget to lock up when you leave. I’ve got a spare key for open shift tomorrow."
The fat fuck who owned the garage strolled out behind a few other employees, but Harper was nowhere in sight. In fact, she and that new hire boy were both nowhere to be seen.
But Flagg. I recognized that name. It was her alias.
She really went back like she never left.
A part of me had known. Had expected it, even. But what I didn’t count on or expect was the emptiness that lingered inside me, making me feel like half of myself had been violently ripped away and cast out overnight.
I tailed her every night, waiting for her on the rooftop across from her job until she started her walk home. Father hadn’t gotten what he wanted, so it wouldn’t serve him to kill her now. Ro hadn’t said much this last week, and I was beginning to think her departure would change us all permanently.
I watched one of the doors on the far side of her building open with a metal screech of protest, and out rolled a shiny pink Camaro with a man behind the wheel. I squinted against the setting sun, spotted the jumper from the garage, and sucked in a breath.
Was it her?
Alas, once parked, the driver stepped out, and it was not, in fact, Harper, but her new coworker. I didn’t know what the fuck his name was. I didn’t care. All I cared about was her.
I needed her like plants need sunshine to survive. Like a starving man needs food. Fuck, she was like a drug, and I, her willing addict. I wanted her like my next shot of heroin, swimming through my veins like a slow-acting poison determined to kill me one day. Like a cloud of acid rain—I knew it would hurt to stand under it, but I welcomed the pain.
I wanted to hurt.
It made me feel alive in ways nothing else could since she walked out that door.
"Sport, you coming, man? We’ve got another engine to pull, and then we can get the hell out of here."
Her voice echoed from the depths of the building, and for a moment, I forgot I was perched on the building’s roof. I nearly jumped down to my death, just to see her face.
Sport—unlikely that was even his name, because come on, who names their kid ‘Sport’—jogged happily back into the shop, and my fingernails started to dig into the fleshy palms of my hands as the door closed between me and her, locking her in with another man.
Did we mean so little to her now? Was it that easy to just forget us?
I was just glad Rowan didn’t know. If he saw how easily she’d moved onto another man, a normal man, he’d lose it. Fucker was already waist-deep in depression and in serious need of therapy, but I wasn’t about to offer up my expertise, and I didn’t know any therapists, considering I avoided them like the plague.
Pacing on the roof was fast becoming my new habit, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d wear a pathway in the damn concrete.
Hours passed, until there wasn’t a single ounce of sunshine left in the sky. Even dusk had come and gone, leaving the darkness to take over like a ghostly specter, a low fog rolling in from the river as each streetlight clicked on and poorly illuminated a section of the sidewalk.
The far door opened, and out walked Harper and Sport, both wearing their normal street clothes again. I didn’t like the way he looked at her, the way he stared down her shirt because he was taller than her, or how his eyes continually flicked to her lips when she talked. He was bad news, even more so than Tony the Twit.
At least that man was blunt and open about his hatred for her .
I stared at the sky for a moment, the stars still faint and almost invisible thanks to the city lights. I’d never see them here like I could when I was interning, living away from home in a one-bedroom apartment in a place called Covenant Hollow.
I still had nightmares about that place. Creepy people, fake ass small-town vibes, and a whole lotta church-goers who looked at me like I was the devil incarnate when that bitch cut my face up.
That was what I got for dating someone whose rap sheet included a lengthy stay in the local sanatorium.
Like a legitimate one, not like the one we occupied for housing.
I was terrible at recognizing red flags back then, and it cost me the boyish good looks that paved the way for most of my life.
I hopped from roof to roof as she walked alongside him, both heading in the direction of her apartment. If there had been any chance I thought this was just an innocent arrangement, it was dwindling with every step the boy took.
He didn’t stop at the door of her building, either. The fucker followed her inside, and I had to bite back a howl of rage as I counted in my head and held my breath, just like every day.
Maybe today would finally be the day they finally gave me a reason to turn into an all-out murderer.
One. Two.
Fucker better not try my patience today.
Three. Four. Five.
Maybe I should count slower so he has a chance to not fuck up.
Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.
Come on, Sport, time’s a-wasting.
Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fift ? —
Fuck this shit.
I slid down the fire escape like a madman, hopping over to her building the second I could move from one to the other without anyone noticing. I took a bunch of risks, stalking her like some sort of predator, but I couldn’t help it. If I didn’t feed the dark urge to keep an eye on her, to make sure she didn’t forget who she truly belonged to, I’d do something stupid. And I couldn’t afford that.
Rowan was on a mission, a side job he took to bring in money while awaiting St. Clair’s determination regarding our failed contract.
He hadn’t told her the whole story, and she knew a lie when she smelled one. So she saw right through him, and promised to make a decision on our future with the guild when she got back from wherever the fuck she’d run off to with the cop who hung on her coattails like he was pussy whipped for her.
Cool metal cut into my sore palms as I crouched a floor above Harper’s window, straining to hear her through the cheap, single-pane glass her landlord thought was adequate.
"Thanks again for walking me home, Sport. I really appreciate it." She giggled at something he said as she wandered into her kitchen and opened a cabinet. "So, how long til that rideshare gets here?"
Soon, he better hope, or I might lose it and kill someone tonight.
"Oh, that’s not long at all," she replied, setting two glasses on the counter. "You want something to drink while you wait?"
I was losing my patience, but she slipped from the kitchen before I could hop down and confront her for letting another man in her house.
I’d gone from being only slightly psycho to being all-in on this monster personality of mine. Stalking her was like cutting myself. It was bleeding out the emotions so I didn’t have to analyze the way my heart felt. I didn’t want to have emotions like these for a woman. Especially one who could break me so easily. But the longer and harder I struggled against them, the more prominent they became, until I was banging my head against the wall to keep from killing myself or going insane.
She turned the light out in the kitchen, and I hurriedly slipped in through the window she left unlocked—apparently, she hadn’t learned her lesson ages ago. I crouched under the table in the corner and waited, listening to every word they said, until five minutes later, he stopped the banter, excusing himself to head home.
Yeah, that’s right, Sport. Run along. She’s into darker men than you.
Or maybe she wanted something normal, and I was just deluding myself. Thinking what I wanted to be true.
Manifesting my future.
The slam of a car door outside signaled his departure, and I grinned widely as I peered around the corner in time to see my fucking Harpie girl slip into her room. The sound of running water threw me back, back to a time when she and I spent time together in my bathroom, her perky ass perched on my counter as she ministered first aid to my superficial wounds. As she pushed me and pushed me until I snapped and sent her away with the cruelest words I could come up with.
If I could take them back now, I would. A million times over.
I was drunk on her and never wanted to sober up again.
I stayed there in that apartment in hiding until she climbed into bed an hour later. Only once I could hear her deep, even breathing did I move into view, leaning over her like a fucking ghost, sniffing her breath as she snored softly to make sure she didn’t smell like another man.
I was certifiable now, breaking and entering, stalking, and as the blankets slipped and bared her naked shoulder, I added voyeurism to the mix. Before I knew it, I was harder than a steel beam, and ready to bust one out on her fucking chest. I could fuck my hand and come all over her, marking her as mine and leaving something behind to remind her of me.
But there was a small part inside of me that said I shouldn’t.
I shoved it to the side and pulled the zipper of my leather pants down slowly, wincing at the sound of the metal teeth separating one by one. When it reached the bottom, I wasted no time in pulling myself free and jerking my cock wildly, needing to do something to alleviate this rampant lust I had whenever I looked at her.
She rolled over, facing me now, and the blankets bared her further, and for the first time in weeks, I felt myself twitch in my hand as her full chest came into view. Her tits had never looked so damn good, and with a muffled groan, I busted like a fucking teenager in his first pussy, making sure the hot ropes of my seed landed across them.
I wiped the last drop from the tip of my dick and swiped it across her lips, wanting her to taste me the minute she came awake.
I needed to be a part of her in some way. Needed her to know on some instinctual level that I was still watching her. That she’d never be rid of me. I wanted to punish her for ever daring to walk away from us.
But I also wanted to stay hidden. I wanted her to guess, or maybe wonder, but never know for sure. I wanted her on her toes, on the edge of sanity for every second of her life.
I needed her fear, her anxiety, her suffering, like I needed air to breathe.
It was the only thing I knew. The only way I could make her feel what I felt every day without her.
My thumb slipped between her lips and found her tongue, smearing the last of my spend on her tastebuds. She’d dream of me, and wake up unsatisfied and strung-out, needing something she couldn’t have. Because she’d taken it away from herself.
I hoped she remembered the taste of me. I needed her to.
No matter what the outcome, I needed her to know I was still here. Still watching. She’d never be alone.
Not even if she wanted to be.
Never again.