Colson pulls the handle out so fast that I wince with a yelp. Straightening up, he releases my wrists and gazes down at my trembling body, punctuated with convulsions every few seconds. He looks down at the handle, slick with opaque streaks, and lifts it to his mouth. Dragging his tongue from the hilt to the pommel, he sucks it clean and then reaches behind his back to replace the knife in his belt.
My eyes round when I notice the ribbons of blood trickling down his finger and dripping onto the carpet. He glances down at his hand and flips it over to reveal a series of nicks and cuts along his pinky and ring fingers. Once he pulls me upright, I reach for his wrist to survey the blood seeping from his marred skin. I glance up at him and pause for a moment, initiating another silent conversation spoken with lingering stares and glimmers of the eye.
He watches in silence as I bring his hand to my mouth and lick the garnet trails up his hand to their wounds, each pass across his palm leaving a sweet metallic tinge on my palate.
“Taste good?” he murmurs, not breaking eye contact.
I only offer a smile as I open the desk drawer to retrieve a white plastic box. Colson presses his mouth together with a smile and watches intently as I start ripping open Band-Aids from the first aid kit. When I’m done, I let go of his hand to return the box to the drawer. But before I can, I feel his hands on my neck.
He turns my head and presses my lips to his. I drop the box, melting into him until I’m forced to climb out of the nicely wrapped box in my head. When Colson pulls away, his eyes have gone dark again, but not in the same way they do when he speaks to me. Somehow, they look even more sinister, which I didn’t think was possible.
“Listen closely, because I’m only going to say this once,” his tone is even and measured, but no less threatening, “if he leaves one more mark on you, I’m not waiting, I’m coming for him.”
I stare back at Colson, my mouth ajar, speechless. His eyes remain locked with mine as he steps away, and they don’t leave mine until he turns to leave my office.
Leave it to Colson to end every single interaction on an ominous note.
Even after he’s gone, I remain on the edge of the desk, staring at the spot of blood on the carpet. I don’t know how long I stay like that, motionless, my mind blank but simultaneously bursting at the seams.
It feels like I’ve woken up from a coma, and I’m about to step into a hurricane.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Brett
One Year Ago
It’s Euphoria night with Barrett, and I should be totally engrossed in Jacob Elordi on my TV and his high stakes high school drama filled with drugs and debauchery, but I’m hardly paying attention.
All I can focus on is Bowen. He’s been sitting outside on the deck in one of the Adirondak chairs for over an hour. And for that entire hour, he’s had a cigarette hanging from his lips or pinched between his fingers. Every few seconds, he blows a puff of smoke into the air, gazing off into the horizon above the treetops. I’ve never seen him smoke anything until now, and all I can think about is when I was standing on the porch of the country club with Hildy after the wedding last fall and she told me about how Bowen used to smoke like a chimney.
“Now, if he has a problem, he just chain smokes for an hour, figures it out, and then he’s fine.”
I glance at Barrett, nestled in the corner of the sofa, alternating between watching in shock as Maddy runs on stage during the school play to scratch Cassie’s eyes out and staring at her phone. I don’t think she notices Bowen out on the deck, burning his way through a pack of Marlboro Lights that I’ve never seen until tonight. He seemed fine when he came home with Thai for all of us, didn’t he? Now I can’t remember because I was so distracted with a million thoughts running through my head.
God, I don’t even know what I did for the last couple hours of work…
I adjust my position on the sofa, tucking my leg under me. And when I lean back, the dull ache of the bruises on my hip reminds me of what Colson said before he sauntered out of my office. I silently groan to myself, cringing that I even let him see them at all.
The look on his face…
I glance out the sliding glass door again. Now Bowen’s standing at the railing, leaning on his elbows, blowing smoke into the air. Waylon lays sprawled out on the slats, getting up once to take a drink from the metal bowl by the door before returning to his spot, but not before stopping next to Bowen for an ear scratch. His cigarette is almost spent, he’ll need a new one soon.
Need a new one...
I don’t know what that’s like because I think cigarettes are disgusting. But maybe I shouldn’t talk, because I have a different addiction I don’t want to acknowledge.
The welts on my hip and shoulder are gone, but I can still hear and feel the sickening, wet pops against my skin. My muscles tense and I begin to tremble at the memory all over again. Then I hear the earsplitting crack of Bowen’s gun when he shot it into the woods while I was tied to his truck, unable to move. And later, even more shots when he emptied the clip into the trees while I tumbled off the back of his truck into the dirt.
Great, more adrenaline-fueled flashbacks to deal with.
This memory is starting to take the place of more distant ones, because even though Colson shoved his gun halfway down my throat three years ago, he never pulled the trigger. Is that how I judge people now, whether or not they pull the trigger? As if anyone else in my life has ever had a gun drawn on them. Twice. By their romantic partners.
That is so wrong. I shouldn’t look out the window and get the same feeling from Bowen that I did after Colson’s brain freaked out in the middle of a PTSD episode. Why did Bowen do something so idiotic, especially when he’s the first person to whom I disclosed what happened with Colson?
And now I have Colson’s voice stuck in my head, along with the look on his face when I told him where the bruises came from. But that could also just be Colson getting into my head and trying to freak me out again.
Because he’s a manipulative prick.
Now I’m more on edge than ever, like I’m just waiting for something terrible to happen.
“Come on!” Barrett’s groans are a welcome distraction from across the sofa.
I can’t concentrate on this show anyway. When I look over, she’s swiping her screen furiously, jamming her thumb into the glass.
“You can’t have more phone problems than I do,” I declare, reaching for my water bottle.
She groans in frustration, “I finally got a Ring cam yesterday, but it’s not connecting to the app, so I can’t even see my front porch!” She shoots me an irritated scowl, “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”
The glass door slides open and Bowen walks inside, Waylon trailing behind. He looks like he always does, laid back but constantly moving. He can’t stand to sit still. But he looks much calmer than I’d anticipate after spending the last hour chain smoking outside. Then again, maybe that’s why he looks so calm. He makes his way to the kitchen and starts refilling a water glass at the fridge.
I twist around, resting my elbow on the back of the couch, “Bo?” I gently call to him.
He doesn’t look up from the water dispenser, but a smile slowly creeps across his face, “Yeah, baby girl?” I’ve started doing it to mess with him, because it seems like I’m the only one who doesn’t call him by that name.
“Barrett needs your help.” I turn back to her, “Ask him about it, he’s had one for a while.”
Bowen finishes filling his glass and takes a few gulps, waiting for Barrett to speak. She catapults herself up from the sofa and marches into the kitchen.
