“Who. Is. She?” she shrieks in Jude’s face. Scarlet blooms over her cheeks, mottling her skin, the blue of her eyes so bright now, they appear almost manic.Jesus Christ. She went fromBeverly Hills 90210toThe Exorcistin two-point-five seconds flat. “Answer me! Is she why you won’t talk to me? Why you don’t love me anymore?” Once more, that feral glare stabs me. “Take that shirt off,” she growls, lunging for the half door that separates the front from the tattooing area.
“Goddammit, Ana,” Jude snaps, blocking the entryway. With the flip of the lock, he’s out the door and around her, his arms locked around her in a restraining hold. “Stop this,” he hisses softly in her ear, but with the deafening silence that has fallen over the whole shop, everyone hears it.
Seconds after his arms envelop her, she sags against him. A sob rips free of her, and she whirls around, wrapping around him like a clinging vine.
His head lifts, and his stare pins me as surely as if glue coated the bottom of my boots. There’s so much in those emerald depths: anger, frustration, helplessness…grief. The last emotion rocks through me, an earthquake measuring eight point nine on the Richter scale. And it’s my heart that’s the epicenter.Jesus. The look in his eyes… I can’t bear it.
I need to back away from it. Just spin on my heel and run to the break room, shutting the door so there’s another barrier between him, his hurt, and me. I can’t feel. Not for Jude. Not for myself. It’s a dirty, greasy slide that I can’t afford to tumble down.
But… I also want to charge over there, snatch that girl away from him, and step in between them. Be his shield against whatever put that agony there. Whoever put it there.
I’m caught like a wiggling fish on a hook, trying to go one way, but a stronger, deeper emotion pulling me the other.
“Jude,” Knox rumbles, his big arms crossed over his even bigger chest. “Take her outside.”
That sadness deepens for just a moment before he nods at his brother, and turning, guides the still sobbing Ana from the shop.
He doesn’t have a coat on.
The inane thought runs through my head as I—and everyone else—watch him try to disentangle himself from Ana’s grip. After two attempts, he succeeds and guides her into a black BMW. He stands there, seemingly impervious to the cold, staring at the space the vehicle occupied long after she drives off.
Seconds, minutes, God, an eternity, elapses, and he doesn’t return. And when he does finally move, it’s to stalk off down the street, away from the shop.
I exhale, my heart pounding against my rib cage, the drumming reverberating in my head like an echo chamber. This is too much. He’s my roommate; we’re not the kind of friends who confide in each other, who tend each other’s wounds. I have my own pile of flaming poo littering my life; I can’t add on someone else’s. Hell, I’m barely equipped to handle my own. Besides, he has Knox, Eden, and his coworkers here. Speaking of work, I need to be there in an hour. Pivoting, I head back toward the break room to grab my bag and keys.
I’m staying out of that mess…
I snatch up my things and break through the rear exit.
And go after Jude.
Chapter Nine
Jude
I don’t want to live without you. Don’t make me live without you.
Ana’s pleas as I forced her into her car chase me down the block. They dog me, snapping at my heels, the back of my neck. Burrowing under my skin and sinking their teeth into flesh and bone. I can’t outrun them. I can’t dig them out of my brain.
So maybe I can drown them out.
I jerk open the front door to a bar, and even though it’s only eight o’clock, more than half of the tables and booths are filled, and the bar is busy. The owner tried modernizing the place a few years back with fancy lighting behind the bar, switching out the scarred tables and ladderback chairs with sleeker models of both, mounting flat-screen TVs permanently fixed to ESPN, and replacing the jukebox with a PA system that played 97.1 FM, The Drive, one of the local rock stations. But the odor of old-school dive bar continues to linger with the working pay phone still hanging near the exit, the condom dispenser in the bathrooms, and the to-go cups for booze.
Slipping onto one of the few empty stools, I wait for the bartender to head my way. Should I be here when I’m on the clock at the shop for another four or five hours, depending if any walk-ins come in? Hell no. Knox is probably cursing my ass out right now, but with Ana’s sobs and subtle threat ringing in my head like the bells of St. Helen’s, I don’t care. I’ve already disappointed him once today by bringing my personal issues into the shop and disturbing business—again. Getting a shot of something inside me so it dulls the ache, slurs the words, eases the panic grabbing at me—that’s my main, and only, concern.
Goddamn. What is taking that bartender so long?
After thrusting my fingers through my hair, I prop my elbows on the bar top and bow my head into my hands.
My eyes close, but almost immediately, I open them again. Because with them shut, I can still feel Ana’s slender body shaking with the force of her cries against me. Can still hear the pain in her voice as she pleads with me to tell her I still love her, that she can’t go on without me. An old image waves before my eyes like a black-and-white photo. Black and white except for the dark crimson streaks of blood on skin and bathroom tiles. I swallow hard, heart thudding against my chest. Every time Ana says those words that carry the hint of a threat, I’m tumbling back to the worst, scariest moment of my life. What if Ana…? It would be my fault.
A phantom hand reaches out, grabs me by the throat, its skeletal fingers squeezing …
My breath wheezes in and out of my constricted lungs, and obsidian smoke starts creeping in on the edges of my peripheral vision. Goddamn,no.Not here. Not now.
But no amount of begging or willing the panic attack to disappear causes it to ease. Standing, I stumble away from the bar, probably looking drunk even though I haven’t had one drop of alcohol yet. Desperate for space, for air, I stagger to the hallway leading to the bathrooms. Privacy for this breakdown.Please God, just let me make it there. No one knows about the attacks, and the thought of suffering one in front of the whole bar only tightens the vise around my chest. Has my heart pumping faster, sweat popping out on my forehead, back of my neck, and under my arms.
With numb fingertips, I shove open the restroom door, uncaring of who is on the other side. I just need in.
