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My boyfriend.
Hah. Who would have ever guessed?
Probably everyone who saw us interact for longer than two minutes.
We finished getting ready, conversation slowly dying out as the weight of this decision began settling on my shoulders. I had to sneak into the bathroom and run the water as I fought off a mini panic attack. A couple of cold splashes to the face did nothing for me, leading me to believe all those movie scenes were built on lies.
After a couple more minutes, I was able to pull it together, reminding myself that it was pure daylight and Gabriel would be at my side. There’d be no way that the Midnight Chemist was still somehow lurking in his hideout. They were likely far, far away from it, trying to lose themselves before they struck again.
The drive was somber, like we were driving to a funeral. We didn’t really talk, and neither of us wanted to listen to music. Thoughts crashed around in my skull. I tried not to think about all the ways this could end up being a big mistake. I tried instead to focus on the trees that blurred past, the shops and the townhomes and the parks, all of them zipping away as we drove out of the city. Houses started to be more spread out, more run-down. Front yards full of trash and kid toys, cars that were rusted and missing wheels, dogs that needed at least three flea baths and a couple of good meals.
I could feel the hideout before we reached out, like a thick cape of dread was dropped over my head, instantly stifling me, making my breathing harder to control. Gabriel slowed down as the road gave way to dirt and gravel, leading up to a shack of a house, yellow crime scene tape still running around the perimeter like some fucked-up gift wrapping.
My stomach flipped. My mouth went ash dry. I squeezed my hands together as the car came to a stop. Things started to spin, the world itself, as if someone had plucked the earth between two fingers and slowly rolled it between them. I couldn’t do this. It was a mistake. Too soon. Couldn’t.
I was so close to death. I looked down and saw bright red blood around my wrists, pooling against my dark skin, dropping in puddles of rubies at my feet.
No. No, this was a massive fucking mistake, and the impending panic attack would be the price I had to pay for making it.
Fuck.
22
GABRIEL FERNANDEZ
I knewthis would be a bad idea. It was too soon. Tristan still hadn’t fully dealt with the trauma he’d experienced not even a week earlier, and now we were back to where it was all caused. I could see the fear and dread sink into him, his eyes wide as he looked out the car window at the beat-down shack. Yellow crime scene tape fluttered in the gentle breeze.
I turned the car back on. Tristan looked to me, head cocked.
“I’m taking you back,” I said, already reversing the car down the gravel-filled driveway.
“Wait, no, hold up.” Tristan put a hand on mine, closing it around me, his fingers touching the gearshift. “I need to do this.”
“Trist, there’s nothing you need to do in life except for sleep and taxes.”
“And eating and drinking. And certain other things.”
I narrowed my eyes. Guess he wasn’t scared enough to not be a smart-ass. I smirked, flipping my hand over so that his fingers locked with mine. His palm was warm against mine, his skin soft. The hands of a writer. Complete opposite to my calloused hand with much thicker fingers than his.
They fit perfectly together. “I’m being serious, Tristan. You don’t have to do this if it’s going to cause you more harm than good. I can take you back to the hotel. Or maybe Eric or Noah are doing something?”
“I don’t need to be babysat,” he said, looking back out the window. The house seemed to be mocking us, two windows on either side of the crooked door, one window cracked with a fluttering white curtain blowing in the wind. As if the damn thing were winking at us.
Come in, come in. I promise I won’t bite.
I looked back to Tristan. It was a cloudy day today, the sun fighting its way through the thick gray wash. Somehow, even with the gloom, Tristan seemed to sparkle. I didn’t want anything—or anyone—to dim that. “I just want to keep you safe, that’s all.”
“I’m safe when I’m by your side, Gabe.” His hand squeezed mine. A blossoming kind of heat planted itself in my chest, its roots spreading outward. This was my boyfriend now. We were official. No more games, no more pretenses about keeping things professional.
I thought back to the last time Tristan wasn’t at my side. He’d been taken that day. I nearly lost him. I never wanted that to happen again.
“If it gets to be too much, tell me, alright?”
He nodded. Fear still resided in his expression, in the way his eyebrows crinkled together and his bottom lips slightly quivered. But there was also determination there. Maybe he really did need to do this. He’d be waking up in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder, saying the nightmares were so vivid… maybe being here could de-fang some of those nightmares.
It could also make them worse.
“Let’s do this,” he said, setting his sights directly ahead.
