Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
BLAKE
I’m experiencing one of those moments where I’m aware I’m awake, yet my eyes refuse to open. Slight sounds catch my attention, but I’m not ready to be fully present. I’m trapped in purgatory, caught between sleep’s comfort and the hell of reality. Once my lids finally open, I’ll have to succumb to the truth.
Brennan was a monster.
Brennan is gone forever.
Without looking, I know Falin’s beside me. I feel the heat of her body, hear her quiet comforting snores. It could be midday or midnight. Time has no meaning, not when the person who’s loved me since the day I was born is dead. Not when everything I knew about him was a lie.
I want to stay here on this cheap mattress, with coils poking my back, inhaling the smell of stale cigarettes that’s permeated the fabric. Curl into a ball and take up residence until I wake up from this nightmare.
But I can’t. I know that. My entire life hangs in the balance and I have shit to do, plans to make. Truths to accept about the man Brennan was.
When I finally open my eyes, adjusting my vision to the sliver of yellow light coming in from the bathroom door, I focus on the brown stain and the peeling paint on the ceiling. I’ve gotten through a lot by picking one point of focus and clearing my head, even if those sights sometimes come back to haunt me.
“Blake?” Damon calls to me in a hushed whisper. “Are you awake?”
If I close my eyes again and stay perfectly still, maybe he won’t talk to me? I try, but an itch on my nose betrays me.
“I see you moving over there. Do you need anything?” His bed creaks and before I can answer, he’s crouching beside me, brushing my hair out of my eyes with his warm palm. “I’ll be right back.”
I grieve the loss of his touch immediately and I hate myself for it. Even with everything that’s happened, I still can’t forget about his deception, his complete betrayal of my trust. He’s the reason Brennan is dead. The reason I’m in this mess. Why do I still want him?
The lock on the door clicks and he’s back, once again crouching at my side. “I got you some water and some salted peanuts. They were the only thing in the vending machine that you could eat.”
I open my eyes again and take in the concern on his face. My mouth is too dry to turn away water, and it must have been twenty-four hours since I’ve eaten anything. Scooting up against the headboard, I accept the cold water bottle, and take a long sip.
“Thank you,” I say, wiping my palm across my lips. He leans forward and hands me the pouch of peanuts, watching me open the package with raised brows like he’s a hovering mother handing her picky toddler a vegetable. To appease him, I shake a few into my palm and pick on them slowly. He seems to sag in relief.
We sit in silence for a few minutes, while I chew and swallow a few peanuts, and he observes me with a tilted head. I can tell he’s dying to talk, but I appreciate the time he’s taking.
Finally, after I take another sip of water and put the capped bottle on the bed, he takes my hand. His golden eyes shine with moisture in the dim lighting. “I’m so fucking sorry, Blake. About your brother, about everything. Please… tell me what to do to help you? I’ll do anything to make this right. I’m sorry, baby. So sorry.”
Dipping my head, I suck in a breath to keep my own tears at bay. I need to be strong, to let him know that I know everything . That this isn’t just about what happened at the warehouse, it’s about him and what he’s done.
But before we have that conversation, I need to know one thing. Meeting his gaze, I ask, “Where is Brennan’s body?”
He’s not expecting that question. His brows draw together as he answers. “The police showed up soon after we made it out. I’m assuming they have him. We’d have to go down to the station and ask, or I can call Ray and have him check it out?”
After learning what I have about Brennan and his nefarious deeds, I don’t know what I want. But I can’t let him rot there in a morgue. We have different last names. I’m not listed on any of the bills. It could take the cops a while to track me down. I need closure if I’m going to move past this.
“I need to see him, to say goodbye.” Damon catches a tear from my cheek before holding my face in his hands. His eyes burn into mine. So intense, I want to look away.
“I’ll make it happen. Whatever you want, you get.” He pulls me against his chest, and kisses my head like he’s cherishing this moment. “I’m sorry.”
“I believe you.”
After a few hours of broken sleep, each of us woke up, one at a time, antsy to leave this dump. I’m supposed to be at microbiology class this morning, but there’s no way that’s happening with everything I have to do.
Damon and I leave for the police station. Falin stays to call the airline and change her flight, while the guys look into another place for us to stay. Somewhere safe and preferably without the sound of truck horns blaring at all hours.
Damon’s antsy. I’m sure the police station is the last place on earth he’d like to be, but I appreciate him coming with me. With our hands entwined, we ask at the front desk about a missing person, being vague with our words as to not garner suspicion. I’m not naturally gifted when it comes to hiding my expressions, so I let Damon do most of the talking. He gives our assigned officer a physical description of Brennan and then I open my phone and pull up the most recent photo I have of him, biting my lip to hold back the flood of tears.
The officer pauses and studies the photo for a few moments before telling us to have a seat.
“She recognized him,” I whisper. “He must be here.”
Damon wraps his arm around my shoulder, holding me close. “Yeah, I think so. You’re doing great. So fucking strong.”
His praise warms the ice in my veins. “Yeah well, I have some practice with this situation.”
It was different with Bryan. I had no idea what I was walking into when they called me to identify him. I was sure they’d been mistaken. It wasn’t my brother that they found behind an overpass with a needle in his arm. It must have been someone else.
The memory of stepping into that eerily still room, with its cold metal counters and harsh fluorescent lighting, still plays clearly in my mind. The stinging smell of disinfectant, my plodding footsteps on the tile floor, the moment when the attendant pulled the pale sheet back, revealing my brother’s lifeless form.
Here I am, about to repeat history, except now I know what I’ll be walking into. I’ve accepted it, but it doesn’t make it easy. I don’t register the officer’s appearance as she guides us through the corridors, but her words ring in my ears. “I’m sorry.”
She’s sorry. Damon’s sorry. Everyone’s sorry.
I’m tired of those words… I’ve heard them so much in my life that hearing them now makes me want to scream.
We’re met with icy air and the scent of decay as we step into the morgue. Damon squeezes my hand, his grip like a much needed lifeline.
The next five minutes are a blur. I know the attendant and the officer speak to me but their words are muffled in my ringing ears. Damon answers questions beside me and before I know what’s happening, we’re back outside.
I stop in front of the car and put my head in my hands, sucking in breaths of cool air. Damon’s right there, like he always is, holding me close.
“Slow breaths,” he murmurs. “Nice and easy.”
I know the signs of a panic attack. Not just from a textbook, but from living with them for years now. It’s been a long time but even if it hadn’t, each time they come on still feels like death’s squeezing my insides with its bony fingers.
“I-I c-can’t,” I say through rapid breaths.
Oh God, my fingers are numb. My feet will come next. Then the full body shakes that make me feel like I’ve been plunged into icy water.
Damon reaches under my arms and sits me on the trunk of his car. “Baby, look at me. Focus on my face.”
He tips my chin up, but I can’t focus. I’m too disorientated. “Ch-choking,” I manage to say through desperate inhales.
Random obscenities leave his lips as I close my eyes, lay back on the windshield, and go into a dark space in my mind. A space where Brennan and Bryan and Mom are alive. They’re laughing, and not in pain. My chest constricts and limbs tremble. It hurts… Everything hurts.
A sharp sensation has me snapping my eyes open. I vaguely hear Damon say my name followed by more muffled words. “Blake, don’t fucking hate me for this.”
A slash of metal follows his words and I feel it again. Stinging, sharp pain. My vision clears as I focus on the sensation—the needle-like bite of his blade piercing my arm.
With my head down, I zero in on the crimson dribbles blossoming across my pale skin like soft rose petals. It’s a beautiful sight, to see my own life force spilling out of me. Minutes go by with me transfixed on the sight.
“Blake, look at me.” Jerking my head up, I’m met by Damon’s wide amber eyes. “Are you okay?” I nod slowly, pulling in a lungful of air through my nose. He makes a cut on the edge of his shirt and tears a large piece off. “Let’s get you wrapped up.”
I watch his deft hands work to secure the fabric along my wounds, tucking the end into itself. Feeling comes back to my extremities by the time he lifts me into his arms.
“W-what was that?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
He sets me in the passenger seat, buckles me in, and heads over to his side before answering the question.
“Something I learned a while ago,” he says while backing out. “Physical sensations help ground us during a panic attack.”
Leaning my head back against the headrest, I concentrate on the throbbing ache. It’s unconventional, but it worked. “Thank you. That was a bad one.”
“You don’t have to thank me.” He rests his hand on my thigh, gliding his thumb in a calming circle.
“Can we stop somewhere quiet? We need to talk.” As exhausted as I am, I can’t do this with him anymore. Not without letting everything out into the open air.
His jaw tenses. “Are you feeling well enough?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lie. The truth is, I won’t feel any better until I’ve said what I need to say.
He dips his chin and turns down a scenic road lined with bare trees. Only a few red and yellow stubborn leaves still cling to branches, unable to accept their inevitable death. I roll down the window and breathe in the rich scent of dry leaves and wood smoke.
“Coffee?” he asks, breaking me from daze.
“Uh, yeah, that sounds good.” I could use the caffeine, among other things.
After grabbing us some drinks from a coffee shop nearby, he pulls over at a small empty park. He opens my door for me, and leads me to a wooden table under a towering oak tree.
I sip my coffee, feeling the warm liquid slide down my throat, waking my nerve endings. Damon jerks his head around, likely checking that we’re actually alone here.
“I don’t even know where to start,” I say. So much has happened recently that I feel like I’m living in another plane of existence. I close my eyes and focus on here and now, not the plans I had before everything went to shit.
“The necklace,” he says. “You found my box.”
I wrench my eyes open. “You knew?”
“Falin told me while you were asleep. Blake,” he starts. “I could come up with some bullshit excuse for why I did it. I could lie and say I wasn’t thinking, or I didn’t mean to take the necklace. But I won’t. I want to be honest with you.”
He stands and paces the length of the bench. “Go on,” I say.
“I took the necklace because I was jealous. I needed to possess the object that you cherished above all else. I watched you for a while. I think you already know that. I saw how you always touched it when you were deep in thought, or nervous, or scared. You’d play with that little heart on the chain with a wistful look in your eyes and… I don’t know, Blake. I needed to claim a piece of you. I couldn’t resist. I didn’t know it was your brother’s at the time or maybe I would have felt differently. Everything else—the perfume, the underwear, the photos. They were all ways to keep you tethered to me.” I stare at my coffee cup, digesting his words. “Say something, please,” he pleads.
“I don’t know what to say. That’s super messed up? You have issues? I’m upset with you? Honestly, I have no idea how to respond.”
He sits so we’re face to face and wraps his hands around mine. “None of that is news to me. I know what I am. But Blake, I’ve been showing you who I am from day one. Don’t forget that. You told me once you love all the fucked up sides of me, remember? Or did you only say that because my cock was inside you?”
“What the hell?” I whisper. “You can’t say stuff like that out here.”
He lets out a deep rumbling chuckle and raises his brow. “Why not? We’re alone. I could fuck you right here on this picnic table and no one would ever know.”
My cheeks heat at the thought of him bending me over this table, the weathered wood splintering my naked skin. “Absolutely not.” Rolling my lip between my teeth, I add, “And that’s not why I said what I said.”
“What? I can’t hear you.” He knows exactly what I said, he’s just being a teasing ass.
“I didn’t say I love those parts of you just because we were being intimate,” I hiss through gritted teeth.
“Don’t be shy now. I’ve heard your dirty mouth before. You can say fucking, Blake. When we were fucking like two starved animals.” He’s so damn smug, I could slap him. I would but I bet he’d love it. “Does that turn you on? Your pretty cheeks are pink.” He lowers his voice to a deep hum. “The same color as your perfect cunt.”
My eyes flutter closed and I force controlled breaths into my nose. Think of anything else, Blake. Do not let him get to you. “Back to our conversation. I need to know that I can trust you or we’ll never work. I can handle a lot, and I wasn’t lying when I said I like the way you are?—”
“Like? I believe the correct word was love.”
I roll my eyes and huff a breath. “Fine… I love the way you are, but?—”
“No buts, you love the way I am. You love how possessive I am. How I make you nervous and excited at the same time. You love how I’ll always put you first, even before myself. How I worship every single inch of your body. You love who you are when you’re with me. Fuck, Blake, just say it.”
“What do you want me to say?” I yell. Once I start, it feels so good, so freeing, I can’t stop. I stand on the bench and toss my head back. “You want me to say that I fucking love you, Damon? Is that what you’re waiting for? Well, fine! I love you, okay? And maybe I’m scared of what kind of person that makes me.”
My chest is heaving as I meet his gaze. I watch a slow smile spread across his lips, his dimples appearing. He reaches for my face with trembling hands, cupping my cheeks. “It makes you mine.”
Our lips crash together in a tangle of teeth and tongues, like we’re trying to breathe every one of our emotions into each other. The way he sucks my lip and claims my mouth has me weak and shaking.
He pulls back for a moment, nuzzling my neck and kissing his way to my earlobe. “I love you, Blake. I’ve loved you from the moment I set eyes on you and will love you until I take my last breath on this earth.”
Our mouths meet again with matching urgency. His hands climb up my shirt, palming my breasts and ghosting over my hard nipples. My skin is electric under his fingertips, sending bolts of desire straight to my core. I suck his bottom lip, nibbling playfully, before saying, “Close your eyes.”
He lets out a hummed chuckle. “I like when you’re bossy.”
Peppering kisses down his neck, I reach the shell of his ear and whisper. “Count to ten, and then come find me.”
“Fuck.” He draws out the word in the most delicious way. I plant one last kiss across his lips, and run toward the copse of trees behind us like my life depends on it.