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Caleb was off me in seconds, and I felt like I could breathe again. I scrambled up on the bed, pulling my dress down over my shaking legs. My entire body was quaking.
“What the fuck are you doing in my room?” Caleb did not have the good sense to save himself as Eli bore down on him.
Eli.
Somehow, he found me, and he had Caleb by the throat against the wall. He looked murderous with rage.
“Eli,” I whispered, sniffling as I tried to get myself together.
Eli didn’t say anything. His attention was fully on Caleb, and there was a gun in his hands.
“Eli!” Jumping off the bed, I rushed toward the door, closing it as best I could. The party outside was going off, and luckily, no one was sober enough to pay attention to what was happening in Caleb’s room. “What are you doing?”
“Did you want him to touch you?”
Caleb’s eyes were wide when he saw the gun. It was still at Eli’s side. “Eli.” I placed my hands on him. “Please.”
“Did he touch you?” Every word was punctuated.
“Why do you care?” Caleb slurred. The little bit of reality he had in his eyes when he saw the gun was gone. Back was the guy who’d tongued my neck despite my screams, and the way that I’d tried to buck him off. “She called me, wanting to rekindle the past.”
“That’s a lie.”
Eli lifted the gun and pressed it under Caleb’s chin. Never before had he looked more like a mafia enforcer than he did in that moment.
“She’s a tease,” Caleb’s head lolled, and I was disgusted. I knew that he was rolling on whatever he took, and I felt disgusted with myself knowing that was what I looked like when he’d given me drugs. “Look at her.” He lifted his arm, a smile on his face. “No girl comes to another man’s apartment in a dress like that.”
In that moment, I hated this dress. I was going to destroy it the moment I could.
“Didn’t look that way to me.” Eli clicked the gun. “Besides, I don’t share very well.”
Eli was going to kill Caleb. He was going to do it in a crowded apartment where there was enough evidence to tie us both to the death.
“Eli, don’t,” I begged.
Eli turned to me, anger in his eyes. “You want me to spare him?” There was disgust in his voice, and I wanted to cry, but I needed to keep it together.
“Yes.” I swallowed the bile in my throat. “He’s high. He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Drugs don’t make a rapist.”
I didn’t think that Eli had ever been on drugs, but I also didn’t disagree with him. Being high never made me hurt anyone else. The only person I ever wanted to harm was myself.
“Let’s go home, please, Eli.”
I held my breath as I waited to see what he was going to do. I sent up a silent prayer that Caleb would keep his mouth shut. Fortunately, whatever he had taken was making his head roll around. His eyes were wide and blown out.
I tried to switch tactics. “You can’t kill him here. You’ll get caught.”
But anger had taken over Eli’s good sense, and I knew the moment he was going to kill Caleb and damn the consequences. My body started to shake as panic flooded my senses, and I felt as though I couldn’t get any air into my lungs.
I gasped, leaning forward as I tried to get life-saving oxygen into my airways. The sound of my panic must have alerted Eli, because his attention immediately went to me. “Carla?” Tears were streaming down my face as the weight of the night crushed upon me. The sight and sound of my panic did something to Eli, and he dropped the gun before rushing toward me.
“Carla?”
He gripped me in his arms, and the feeling of the cool, metal barrel caused my shaking to intensify. I wanted to beg him to just leave the room, but I couldn’t get the words out.
Eli didn’t need the words though. He holstered his gun and took me in his arms, carrying me fireman style. “I’ve got you,” he assured me.
