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Dammit. Shut the fuck up, brain. It’s good she left. I just hope to God she makes it out of this place safely and gets back to her quiet, simple life. A life that’s not mixed up with criminals and gangsters, like mine.
I’m used to it. Had many years to digest the concept.
I shouldn’t get used t
o her presence so easily. To the gentleness of her touch. Her concern.
Nothing to be concerned about. She thinks I didn’t expect this. That I wasn’t prepared.
She’s wrong.
I just didn’t expect her to be a part of it. But it doesn’t matter. She’s just a hot body. She doesn’t matter to me.
She doesn’t.
I repeat this to myself, force myself to believe it as I curl up as best I can for the night. It doesn’t matter she’s still wearing the bracelet I gave her, that she stuck around to make sure I was okay, that she believed even for a moment I’m a good guy.
My head is pounding, my heart is hammering, but exhaustion is dragging me under. I’ve been missing now three days… right? Time has sort of blurred, the hours stretching, day blending into night. I have one name. The Boss, if that’s who he really is.
Is it enough? I could run after her, ask her to call someone, anyone. Call the police, call my friends. Get me out this hell.
Tomorrow I could move things along faster, tell the Boss I’ll do whatever he wants and get a phone call. One phone call to any of my lawyers or admin staff will be enough for me to give the signal that I need rescue.
But I know it’s not enough. If I last one more day, get more info… then the GPS in my watch will be activated, wherever it is they’re keeping it, and the cavalry will come. I just need to hold out one day and one night more.
I can do this.
I can fucking do this.
Storm and Rook are gonna have fucking kittens if the signal doesn’t reach them on the fourth day.
The signal will reach them. It’s gonna work out just fine, and I’m losing the battle for consciousness. Sleep tugs me under, and it’s a fucking relief to give in, to lose track for a while. To let it all fade to black.
Sharp slivers of nightmare cut me up, wake me up throughout the night. I sit up gasping, the pain in my body echoing the pain in my mind.
My parents, explaining to the crowd around us how I destroyed them, how I signed their death warrant because I don’t care about them. I have no heart, they declare to the cameras. This boy feels nothing.
The crowd laughs. The sound is like a bullet through my chest.
I see my grandfather. He’s dead, and yet he grabs me by the neck and slams me against the wall.
Heartless, he yells in my ear. Arrogant, selfish. Is this who I raised you to be, boy? Untrustworthy, careless, skirting your duties.
I’m not all that, I try to yell back at him but my voice doesn’t work. I’m doing the best I can. Isn’t this who you raised me to be, Grandpa? To be like you?
It doesn’t matter. He left me, and his form dissolves into dust and ashes, so what am I to do?
I’m kneeling in the dust storm that’s swirling around me, and there’s a body in front of me. I lean closer, the dust stinging my eyes, and her still face hurts me in a way nothing ever has.
Layla, dead.
No. NO! No, she’s not dead. She’s alive.
She wakes up, then, blinking those whiskey-colored eyes, and I want to howl, the relief almost as strong as the grief I felt a moment ago.
I pull her into my arms and kiss her, thrust my tongue between her lips, bite at her lower lip. Punish her for scaring me like that.
For letting me think she left. For letting me think I caused her death.
