Chapter 14
Henley
Iwould have liked to assume it was vomit that made Grace run away like a frightened rabbit, but that sudden deflation in her mood told me it wasn’t. I’d unknowingly struck a chord, and for some goddamn reason I couldn’t place, I felt bad about it.
I leaned against the wood-paneled wall outside the women’s restroom, head tilted back as I zoned out on a stain in the ceiling. She’d been in there for ten minutes now, and for those ten minutes, utter silence had surrounded me.
Distant chatter from the bar filtered this way, but it wasn’t that noise I was listening for. It was her. A door opening, a toilet flushing, water running in the sink. Anything. Yet the little killer was quiet as a fucking mouse.
Five more minutes. Then I’d go in.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t been in the restroom with her before. In fact, we’d probably spent more time in bathrooms together than any other place at this point. This time, it’d be different. I was sure of it.
Whatever I’d said, I’d ticked her off. This time, I wouldn’t be stitching her wound or dragging an orgasm out of her. I’d be picking up the pieces I had somehow let fall.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
She was slowly sucking me into her trap, digging her claws into my heart and giving me the inability to think—to breathe—if not in her presence.
There was no fucking way I was turning into the lovesick puppies Austin and Booker had become.
I told myself that, and yet simply knowing she was behind that door, likely upset or sick or crying, made me angry.
Angry at myself for causing it. Angry at those emotions for plaguing her. Angry at the world for being so hard on her that she’d be triggered by something someone said.
What had happened to her to cause her to flip at my mention of her needing to be controlled? Had someone hurt her? Because if they had… Well, they’d soon be wishing they’d never laid eyes on her in the first place.
That was, if she hadn’t killed them already.
Would she, though? If it came down to her life? Or did she only reap souls of those she’d been assigned to?
Fuck it.
I pushed off the wall and shoved my way into the bathroom. Two steps in, I froze. The door swung shut behind me, the sound muffled as I stared down at the sight before me.
Grace sat in a ball on the floor, her back pressed to the dirty tile behind her. And her eyes were…blank. No tears, no redness or sniffling or wet cheeks. She looked…empty.
My chest pinched, a bite of pain working its way through my body. She was hurting, and I’d been the one to bury the blade in her.
I crossed the small space and took a seat beside her, bending one knee to my chest. I looked at the side of her face, mentally scrambling through a thousand things I could say.
It wasn’t often I was rendered speechless. Usually, I either had a lot to say or simply preferred to remain quiet. But right now, I needed to tread carefully. I could pester her all day long, tease her to the ends of the earth only to see her react, but this was more than that.
“Who hurt you?”
Her arms tightened around her legs. “No one.”
“Grace.” Her name was a warning on my lips. “Don’t make me pry this from you.”
“How do you gather that someone has hurt me simply because you went too far?”
My eyes shut for a moment, reminding myself to have patience. “That wouldn’t have been too far for someone who hasn’t been hurt before.”
Her swallow was audible. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“Oh, so you’re a know-it-all, too.”
I bit back my frown. “What part upset you?”
She shifted, looking like she was preparing herself for something. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re stubborn, you know that?”
Finally, the woman looked at me. Her green eyes were vibrant against her black hair and pale skin. I could get lost in them, I reckoned.
“Was this your plan? To come in here and insult me some more?” she asked. A bit of color was beginning to stain her cheeks, whether from the alcohol or her irritation at my presence, I wasn’t sure.
I pasted on a fake smile. “Is it working?”
She shook her head, turning away from me.
I didn’t like that.
I grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at me again, and quieted my voice. “Talk to me.”
Something in her melted, her eyes becoming a little softer. She seemed to study me for a moment, debating whether opening up this part of her to me was a good decision.
It isn’t, I wanted to tell her. Stay far, far away from me. Everything I touch either breaks or hurts me in the end.
“The first person I killed was an accident,” she started. I wasn’t sure what this had to do with her becoming triggered over what I’d said, but I let her continue.
“I was at Club Fourteen—the one I went to the other day. I’d gotten into an argument with my boyfriend at the time, and he left me there.
Took the car and wouldn’t answer my calls.
” My hand left her chin, fingers forming a fist in my lap as she went on.
“So I went outside and tried to get an Uber. Well, finding one that’ll drive you to a small town in the middle of nowhere is difficult, if you can imagine.
I stood there for a while, staring at that bright screen in a dark alley.
“I didn’t see the guy sneak up on me. My eyes weren’t adjusted to the dark, so I couldn’t fight him off well.
He…tried to touch me. He got me on the ground, and I screamed.
” Her eyes turned vacant as she relived that night.
“I screamed so loud, and no one came. I dragged my nails down his face, cutting him open, and he pinned my wrists to the asphalt and told me I needed to be controlled.”
Rage hit me in the gut, churning my insides until I felt restless. It was an effort to keep my limbs from moving until a hand closed over mine in my lap.
My gaze snapped down to her hand folded delicately over mine. “You didn’t know,” she said.
With her touch, a part of me settled. A part that hadn’t been calm for years.
“How’d you kill him?” I asked, needing to know.
“I found a rock. Smashed his head probably two dozen times.”
My fist relaxed, hand turning over to grip hers. My thumb ran over her skin, back and forth. The thought of feral rage bringing her to kill a man had pride coursing through me.
My little killer saved herself.
“But someone saw, and…that’s how I got stuck in this situation. Killing people for a living.”
“They blackmailed you,” I assumed.
She nodded, pulling her hand from mine. I missed the feel of her skin immediately.
“But you could have blackmailed them right back,” I told her.
She picked at the side of her black-painted fingernail. “It’s not as easy as it sounds. They have people everywhere. If I turned them in to the police, they’d somehow get away with it, and I’d end up dead no matter what. It’s easier to just oblige.”
Knowing this opened my eyes, made me see her in a different light.
Like maybe she wasn’t the stubborn thorn in my side.
This entire time, I’d seen it more as a personal vendetta and had been holding it against her.
But she was in this against her will, and unfortunately, I knew all too well how that felt.
“I get what you mean,” I said, not knowing what the fuck I was thinking with what I was about to say. “My father forced me to dig my own grave when I was six.”
Her gaze snapped to me, eyes wide. “He what?”
I inhaled deeply, numb to reliving the memory.
It played on repeat often, knocking me down a few notches on the days I felt too good about myself.
“He said I acted up too much and had pushed my luck a little too far one day. I’d wanted to take a bath with my new toy train, but I didn’t know that not all toys could go in water.
When he found out, he dragged me outside, sopping wet.
Told me to dig, and that if I ruined one more thing he bought, he’d bury me there. ”
Sympathy etched into her features, her brows pulled tight and mouth pulled down a bit. “That’s way more than overreacting. That’s…” She shook her head. “Evil.”
“He was a materialist. Not only that, but without my mom around often, he was the sole parent. Sure, that’s a lot of stress, but it probably wouldn’t have been as bad for him if he hadn’t been out drinking all the time, barely scraping by.”
The side of her head leaned against the wall, bringing my attention back to the fact that we were sitting on the floor of a rather disgusting bathroom.
“Where was your mom?” she asked, her focus still entirely on me, like nothing else mattered but my story.
It felt good, having that attention.
It’d been a long time since I’d felt that. Not even Aubree knew these parts of me.
“She left my dad shortly after I was born. Didn’t want the responsibility, I guess. She’d show up every now and then, but the visits were never anything special. When she died, it wasn’t much of a change.”
I didn’t mention how it was almost a relief when we got the news of her passing. All I’d had left was waiting for my shitty father to die of alcohol poisoning. Every night, I’d lie in bed and hope he wouldn’t return. One day, my wish finally came true.
That was when I turned to Austin and Booker. We leaned on each other like family, never apart from that day forward.
Her hand returned to mine, squeezing gently. “You’re not a reflection of them.”
My thumb ran over her skin, reveling in her touch.
“I know. I made sure of it.” I looked up to find her staring at me, this look of awe in her gaze.
I didn’t deserve a single second of it, but I wanted to earn it.
To have the privilege of her eyes on me with something other than disgrace and hatred in them.
I stood, tugging her up with me. She swayed forward, one foot tripping over the other in those ridiculous fuzzy slippers before she bumped into my chest.
She smiled, and I melted.
“Drink too much, little killer?” I asked with a smirk.
She huffed. “No. My legs are asleep.”
“Mm-hmm.” I wasted no time scooping her into my arms, only to be met with an eye roll.
“My legs still work, you know.” Her words reminded me of what had happened just last night. How she’d tasted and the way her moans still echoed in my mind.
I refused to look down at her as I led us out of the restroom. With this weird shift between us, I couldn’t trust myself not to do something stupid. Like kiss her.
“I’d rather not risk it. I don’t feel like stitching you up again.”
She crossed her arms. “I’m not that clumsy of a drunk.”
“So you are drunk,” I teased.
I didn’t have to look to know she was frowning. Judgmental eyes glanced our way as I walked through the bar to the exit, but I ignored all of them. Not even bored low-lifers could take this moment from me.
Maybe carrying the girl who’d tried to kill me a few days ago out of a bar might not be significant to anyone else, but to me, it felt like holding the weight of the world in my arms. The only people who knew about my childhood were Booker and Austin, and now Grace knew a speck of it.
Perhaps I’d told her so she didn’t feel alone in her fucked-up past, or maybe I simply needed to finally speak it aloud.
In the end, it didn’t matter. She knew, and I knew, and that only brought us closer when we should’ve been staying far, far apart.
I buckled her into the passenger seat of my truck, pretending like my hand sliding over her thighs was accidental.
Halfway home, her eyes fell shut and her breathing grew deeper. I didn’t mind carrying her inside her house, or tucking her into bed and taking those slippers off her feet. But when she drowsily reached out and wrapped her fingers around my arm?
The ice age in which my heart had been stuck for nearly the entirety of my life thawed. I’d never been treated so delicately. Like I was wanted.
I told myself that was why I crawled into bed next to her and relaxed when she curled into my side. Why I ran a hand over her hair after she rested her head on my chest. And why I got one of the best nights of sleep, with the weight of my past lifted off my shoulders and her body in my arms.