When I hesitate, he shoots me a warning look. I don’t want his gun, but I reluctantly lift my hand and wrap my fingers around the grip.
He lets go of the barrel and takes a step back, “Shoot me.”
“What?” I murmur, glancing down at the gun hanging at my side.
Colson lifts his chin, his blue eyes reflecting back at me with defiance, “Shoot me,” he says louder this time.
“No,” I whisper, looking around the kitchen for God knows what.
“Have you lost your sting, Honeybee?” his voice drips with disdain, “You know you want to after what I did to you. You remember what an amazing night that was...”
Slowly, I raise my eyes to meet his, clenching my jaw as his face begins to change, like a man transforming into a beast before my eyes.
“Remember how bad I fucked with your head?” Colson grins, sensing my anger like blood in the water, “And still, you wanted me so bad that you drove to Cincy with me,” he runs his tongue along the backs of his teeth, his tone turning venomous, “you were so hungry for more that you fucked my hand on the way back. And you liked that so much that you made me pull over so I could fuck your face!”
I grit my teeth and look away as he taunts me, but he doesn’t let up.
He leans in, bumping my head with his nose, “You made a deal with the devil that night, didn’t you? I marked you as mine, tasted your blood on my tongue, and you surrendered everything to me—mind, body, and soul,” he leans into my ear with a whisper, “signed, sealed, and fucked.”
The gun barrel taps my thigh as my hand starts to tremble.
Colson pulls back, “I should’ve kept you tied to that bed. Then you wouldn’t have run off and broke your promises like a lying little whore!” He looks me up and down, “Just see if I let you leave here again...”
I jerk my head up, my arm tensing.
“You want to know why I didn’t say anything until now?” he jeers at me, “Because fucking with you and getting under that soft, beautiful skin of yours is like being edged all day for months on end.”
My fingers tighten around the black metal.
“My fucked-up mind is what gets your panties wet, isn’t it? I can put a gun in your mouth—a gun—and you’ll keep coming back to me,” he lowers his voice again, “like a little bitch in heat.”
Now, all I hear is Bowen’s voice, assaulting my eardrums while air hisses through my teeth.
“You wanted me to find you. I almost put a bullet through your head, and you still loved me,” Colson growls, “because I am your worst. Fucking. Nightmare.”
The next thing I see are my arms out in front of me, pressing the end of the barrel into his chest, tears blurring my vision.
“You gonna pull the trigger, Brett?” Colson snarls, “Do it! Before I bend you over my table. If you thought Bowen’s gun was bad, wait ‘til you see what I’m going to do.” His voice reverberates against my face, “You’ll be wishing for death!”
I pull the trigger and feel the click of the slide against my palm. Then all the air leaves my lungs, and everything goes silent.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Colson
One Year Ago
“Feel better?”
Brett stares down at her hands, shaking and still gripping my gun with white knuckles. Then she jerks her head up, eyes wide with horror.
I’m not dead. And there’s not a gaping bullet wound in my chest or blood spatter across the kitchen. It’s just us, standing opposite one another, in silence.
“You—” she presses the back of her wrist to her mouth, her eyes darting back and forth across the tile.
“There are worse things than dying, Brett,” my voice returns to its normal tone, “like what happens before the lights go out, or living with the aftermath. But I’ll let you kill me over and over if it’ll give you something back that you lost. Fortunately for me,” I slowly reach up and pull the gun from her grasp, “you don’t know what a loaded gun feels like.”
She meets my eyes with a forlorn look that quickly morphs into a scowl. Still stunned and unable to form words, she finally turns and charges out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
Brett’s never been a shrinking violet to be coddled, so I’m not going to start now. I’ll let her sit with her anger. Some people are afraid to do that, they want to ignore it and get rid of it as soon as possible. But anger keeps you hungry, and if you accept it as part of yourself like bones and muscle, eventually it turns into something else. Something you’ll need when the time comes to do what has to be done.
I’ll give her the night to sleep on it—maybe really sleep if she feels safe enough here. She should, because there’s no way anyone’s crossing the property line without getting a bullet through their skull or, at the very least, a limb ripped off by my dog. But she’s still terrified, and no amount of reassurance is going to convince her yet.
That’s why I don’t bat an eye when she hurls her dishes across the kitchen and tries to shoot me in the chest with my own gun. She’s wound so tight, it’s probably the first real outburst she’s had in her entire adult life. She keeps everything under wraps, bottled up until the inevitable explosion. But as long as she doesn’t try to run, everything will be fine. In which case, I’ll have to go after her and carry her ass back here. But when the bedroom door slams and it doesn’t open again until well after dark, I figure she’s not going to.
She doesn’t want to deal with what’s outside the front door, anyway. That’s why she’s here.
I hear soft footsteps move across the hall to the bathroom and then nothing until after I collapse onto my bed, staring at the ceiling fan humming on high until my eyes drift shut. I’m almost asleep when I hear a knock at my door. I lumber across the room, only to find Brett standing in the hallway, waiting patiently with her arms crossed over her chest.
I lean against the door frame, rubbing the side of my face, “What’s up?”
The air conditioner can barely keep up with the heat, but she looks like she’s shivering in her grey sleep shorts and blue tank top. She lets out a weary breath, “Can I sleep in here? Every little sound is freaking me out.”
“Why are you knocking?” I ask, “Just come in.”
“I’m not sneaking up on someone with a sleep disorder who’s prone to violence,” she snaps.
I rake my teeth over my bottom lip, trying not to laugh, you won’t walk through the door uninvited, but you’ll ask to sleep in the same bed as someone with a sleep disorder who’s prone to violence?
