Page 9 of No Good Fight

A fire call that I didn’t even need to be on because it’s my night off, but I was in the area and they needed the help.

My heart is racing in an unsteady beat filled with panic. Not in a way anyone else would notice if they were sitting beside me, or a way that would make my hands shake on the wheel or my breathing change enough to give me away.

But it’s panic all the same.

The kind that settles low and cold behind my ribs while I roll past her building a second time and scan the parking lot, the sidewalk, the alley, and the half-broken streetlight she parked under even though I told her not to.

Of course she parked there anyway.

Alex has never met a reasonable warning she couldn’t argue with just to prove that she can, and most of the time, I admire the hell out of that.

Tonight, I want to throw her over my shoulder and carry her somewhere with better lighting, better locks, and a whole lot fewer ways for someone to get to her. Not to mention they’d have to go through me to get to her. And all of this frustration is coming from the fact that I can’t even tell her I’m here.

Which is exactly why I keep both hands on the wheel and don’t get out yet.

I don’t get to think like that.

Not about her.

Alex doesn’t belong to me.

Yet. That incessant voice in the back of my brain insists. Alex could be mine. She should be mine.

The hallway light outside her unit flickers through the stairwell window, buzzing loud enough that I swear I can hear it from across the street. Everything about this place pisses me off. The cheap locks. The dim lot. The open stairwell. The old windows that probably haven’t closed right since before Alex was born.

And even worse is that window.

Barely cracked.

Wrong.

I pull into a spot close to her apartment, where I can see everything, and leave the truck running, because apparently part of me still thinks I might be able to drive away from this…from her.

Don’t be an idiot, Ryder.

My phone sits in the cup holder, screen dark. I should call her. That would be the normal thing to do. I could tell her I was driving by after shift and saw the window. I could make it sound casual enough that she wouldn’t immediately wonder why I know which window is hers.

Except nothing about this is casual.

There’s no driving away or just driving by when it comes to Alex, and I’m afraid she’ll be able to hear the obsession in my voice.

There’s nothing normal here.

There’s only me doing the same pathetic loop every time she works late, convincing myself I’m looking out for Josh’s little sister and not feeding the sick obsession I should have starved years ago.

The kitchen light comes on.

My whole body locks with anticipation.

A few seconds later, Alex appears in the window, partially hidden by the curtain. Her dark hair is loose around her face, and Josh’s old hoodie hangs off one shoulder, too big on her small frame in a way that makes something ugly crawl through me even though I have no right to care whose clothes she wears.

She should be in my clothes. In my house. In my bed.

She steps closer to the window and stops.

I know the exact second she sees it.

She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t jump back. Instead, Alex goes still, and that stillness makes me feel fucking murderous because I know something hellish taught her to freeze before she reacts.