Chapter 16 #4
Sid? What the fuck does this have to do with him?
The last time I saw Sid was almost a decade ago.
It was a few months after Aanya died. I don’t remember much, which I suppose, is a “coping mechanism.” I can forget just about anything.
It’s a real talent. Whole chunks of my early twenties are gone because of it.
My therapist used to say that they are recoverable. But some things are meant to stay lost.
Audrey keeps looking at me, expecting some sort of answer and I fight the urge to break something and throw it at her face. I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here before I explode or vomit or explode in a cloud of vomit. “You need to leave,” I say.
“Holly, I’m trying to help you.”
My eyes flash up to hers. “I’ve had my fair share of people trying to help me in the past few days. I do not need your fucking help.”
“You need to talk to Nate Lawson —”
“Don’t ever say that name again.”
“You don’t understand. You need to listen to me.”
“And you need to leave me the fuck alone before I’m forced to call security.”
There’s nothing but pure desperation in her eyes. The tube light flickers again. Several others in the café turn to look at it. “Holly, please,” Audrey continues. “You have to listen to me. I don’t have much time.”
“Good. Because I don’t have much patience left either.”
“You have to trust me.”
My mouth feels like it's stuffed with cotton balls. Words get stuck halfway out, refusing to come. It feels like I haven't slept in a hundred years. The background noise fades out, replaced by a low buzz that makes my head throb.
Something feels wrong. I don’t know what, but something…it all feels terribly wrong. Instinct takes over. I push back my chair and get up, turning around to get the hell away from her, running into someone right away. The entire contents of my coffee cup spill all over my white lab coat.
“Fucking hell.” I shake my arms, trying to get the hot liquid off my sleeves. “Can’t you watch where you’re going?”
“I was,” says an accented voice, even-tempered and calm. “Still am.”
I look up and meet a pair of familiar blue eyes. The tube light has finally stopped flickering and when I turn back around, Audrey is no longer there. The bubble of white noise grows thick and heavy, weighing in on me till it pops. I feel disoriented.
“Love?” says Theo.
I swallow, my throat rough, and turn back around to look at him. “Where the hell have you been?” I shove his chest.
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“I woke up and you were gone.” I hate how needy I sound.
“I left a note. And pancakes.” His tone is nonchalant. Unbothered. “Did you like them?”
“They were trash.”
The corner of his mouth hikes up. “This is adorable. If I knew you had such a strong case of separation anxiety, I would have left something behind. You know, like a sweater or a lock of my hair?”
“Or your severed arm.”
“You know, Hollister. It’s becoming a bit hard for me to take your threats seriously.”
The casual amusement in his tone sets my blood on fire.
Under normal circumstances, I would simply ignore his existence, not caring if he lived or died.
But since these are not “normal circumstances” — I’m angry and drenched in coffee and all I want is for him to tell me where the hell he’s been all day.
Did he go and tell someone about the texts?
About me? Did he tell Audrey? Is he working with Audrey? “Where were you, Theo?” I ask again.
No response. His brows furrow and he goes on watching me.
But not with the usual mischievous gleam that makes me want to wrap my fingers around his throat and strangle him to death.
No. This is different. Intense. His jaw clenches, a muscle twitching in his cheek and for a moment, the playful glint in his eyes vanishes, replaced by something primal and possessive. “What is that?” He reaches for my hand.
I yank my hand back. He catches my wrist, his thumb caressing a specific spot on the side of my palm, sending a hot current through my veins.
I look down to see what the fuck he’s talking about and — oh. It’s the cut from the glass shard this morning. A thin red line; barely a scratch, but it still stings.
“It’s nothing, it’s just a cut.” I try snatching my hand back, but his grip is firm.
“You’re hurt. That’s not nothing to me.” He lifts my hand, holding it close to his face for a better look, his fingers brushing against mine.
Warm air washes over the cut, followed by the faint brush of his lips against my skin.
It's a feather-light touch, barely there, but it ignites a spark deep within me. Every single person in the cafeteria is staring at us. I can feel it. Yet, I can’t seem to tear my gaze away from Theo’s face and the way he’s holding my hand.
Like I’m the most delicate thing in the world.
His eyes are fixated on the cut, but I can tell he’s aware of everything too — the eyes on us, the way my heart is hammering against my ribs, the heat that’s rising in my cheeks.
He isn’t looking directly at me, but somehow, he’s still seeing right through me.
He leans in even closer. A gentle puff of air hits the cut, warm and intimate, and my knees turn to mush.
I yank my hand back, a jolt of electricity shooting up my arm as our skin separates.
“Where the fuck were you, Carter?” I demand, practically feeling the redness in my cheeks.
“Careful, now. It sounds like you missed me.”
Great. His usual sardonic self is back. “Are you capable of a having a normal, adult conversation for one second? Or is that too much to ask for?”
He makes a light clicking sound with his tongue. “Depends.”
“On what?”
Hands behind his back, he steps forward. “What do I get in return?”
The air crackles between us. It's like we're the only two people in the whole cafeteria, and all I can feel is the heat of his body and the frantic thumping of my heart. It's ridiculous, and a bit scary too, but I can't deny the way my stomach flips when he gets this close. “My self-restraint.”
He makes a light clicking sound with his tongue. “But I kinda like it when you lose all control around me. Turns me on.”
This man was put on this planet with the sole purpose of getting on my nerves.
I can already feel my anger bubbling up, hot and prickly.
But I can't lose my shit in front of all the other doctors in the cafeteria. That would be unprofessional. I’m a lady.
Murder and bloodshed behind closed doors only.
So, it’s probably for the best that I push past his shoulder and go somewhere where I can cool off, right?
Wrong.
Because the second I walk away, he pulls me back.
Not by my arm. Or even my wrist.
Theo Carter pulls me back by my fucking collar.
My eyes open with a start. Several other doctors begin to stare at us with gaping jaws and wide eyes. One of them even gets up to help.
“Sit back down,” Theo orders.
He sits back down.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
Theo’s grip tightens and he pulls my collar down, further exposing my neck. “What the fuck is that?”
“What?” The second I lift my hand to touch the spot, he whacks it away. “Theo!”
“Don’t touch it,” he snaps.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I reach up and my fingers brush the sensitive skin of my neck, then linger on a small mark. A bite mark. His bite mark. The one he had left in his car the night I had stabbed him. God help me, this man is psychotic. “You did that!”
A second passes. His eyes meet mine and the fucker is smiling again. “Oh. Right.” He buttons up my collar and lifts it a little to hide my skin. “There. Much better.”
The sudden shift in his demeanor scares me.
But not the way a jump scare in a horror movie scares my sister, or the way a sudden drop on a roller coaster scares her fiancé.
This is a more primal, instinctual fear.
The kind that makes my heart pound and my breath catch.
It’s not an unpleasant fear. It’s exciting and thrilling, and I hate to admit it, but a little part of me, a dark, twisted part, likes being scared of him.
I slap his hand away. “Don’t ever fucking touch me like that again.”
“Does that mean there are other, more acceptable ways I can touch you?”
“Depends. Do you like keeping your fingers attached to the rest of your body?”
His grin widens. “Kinky. And I promise, we’ll make time for that later, but first —” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. “Here. I found something.”
“Is it common sense?”
“Well, given how much I still want to kiss you after you just threatened to maim me, it’s safe to say that the search for that is still on.”
A butterfly takes flight in my stomach, and I stab it through the heart.
He hands me a crumpled paper, his fingers brushing mine, and for a split second, I wonder how they’d feel around my throat — what the fuck, Holly?
Jesus. I shake my head, forcing the thought away.
I unfold the paper, my eyes scanning the messy scrawl.
It’s an address — barely legible, like it was jotted down in a rush. “What is this?”
“An address,” Theo states.
My gaze flickers over the uneven lines of numbers and letters. “I can see that, Theo. Who does it belong to?”
“Nate Lawson.”
The name hits me like a slap. My eyes snap back to his face, searching for any hint that this is some sort of joke, but his expression is steady, unreadable. “What?”
“No, please don’t thank me,” he drawls, sarcasm dripping from his words. “It was no trouble at all. It’s actually quite easy to get an ex-convict’s home address —”
His voice starts to blur, the edges of his words smudging into background noise as my attention shifts back to the paper in my hands. I stare at it, the letters and numbers swimming before my eyes, as if they’re trying to rearrange themselves into something less horrifying.
My mind blanks. It’s like my thoughts have been unplugged, yanked out of their sockets and left to dangle uselessly. Nate Lawson’s address? His fucking address?! The trembling starts in my fingertips, spreading up my hands and into my wrists as I grip the paper tighter, crumpling the edges.
I try to focus, to string together a coherent thought, but the address seems to expand, taking up all the space in my head. The lines of ink almost feel alive, writhing on the page, mocking me.
“So?” Theo says. “Up for a little road trip?”
The fact that we’re surrounded by people is starting to matter less and less by each passing second.
I don’t care if anyone sees. I want to shove a fork through his throat, and I want to do it now.
My gaze snaps back up to meet his and I glare so hard it feels like my eyes are being serrated. “I am not going anywhere with you.”
Theo rolls his eyes, a sigh escaping his lips as if he’s dealing with a petulant child. “Okay, can I please know how long our back and forth is going to last this time until you finally cave and say yes?”
My pager buzzes erratically in my pocket, but I ignore it. “How about never?”
“I don’t understand what the issue is. It’s just an address. I’ll be there with you the entire time.”
“Or you could just leave a note and some shitty pancakes.”
Theo doesn’t take the bait. “Holly, I found the guy who's been sending you those messages. We need to go confront him.”
Eyes still locked to his, my hands ball into fists, my nails digging into my palms, crumpling the stupid piece of paper.
The cut near my thumb starts to burn like a thousand fires set ablaze at once.
A sharp probing pain goes up my arm. My chest aches.
The world shrinks to a single memory and a single voice, one I haven't thought about in years.
“I was just trying to protect her.”
“She wanted it.”
“No one will believe you.”
The taste of bile rises up my throat along with searing hot shame.
I draw in a quick, sharp breath, blinking back the tears that prick at my eyes, then look away.
I’d kill myself before giving Theo Carter the satisfaction of seeing me break.
Especially over something that I’ve trained myself to never ever think about again.
“So, you’re the one who told Audrey about the texts. ” My voice is barely a whisper.
He frowns. “Who’s Audrey?”
Of course. Lies, lies and more lies. A fucking never-ending cycle with this guy.
Just then a panicked voice cuts through the tense air. “Dr. Moore!”
We both turn towards the source. It’s Jennie. My intern. She rushes towards us, her ponytail bouncing wildly. She skids to a halt in front of us, gasping for breath. “Dr. Moore…” she pants, her voice ragged.
What fresh hell is this now? “What’s wrong?”
She bends over, hands on her knees, struggling to catch her breath. “Dr. Corbin needs you in the ER…” she sputters, finally straightening up. “There are some people asking for you.”
“What people?” Theo asks.
Jennie pants some more, before grabbing a bottle of water from someone else’s table, and drinking it all. She wipes her mouth and then answers, “The police.”