And right then, my gut was screaming to stay true to what I had been doing since I’d entered the world eighteen years earlier. If I was going to die that night, I was going down fighting.
Slamming my head forward, I head-butted Frankie squarely in the nose. The gun fired over my shoulder, but at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less about where the bullet lodged—and that included in Clay Page’s head.
It had taken only three punches to the face before he fell to the ground, dragging me down with him. I heard the gun skitter across the pavement, and before I landed on top of him, I had planted another fist to his mouth. His head cracked hard against the concrete, but I didn’t let it deter me. He eventually stopped fighting back, but the only thing that snapped me out of it was the sound of sirens in the distance.
I stood up, covered in blood, and headed back to my truck. I spared one glance over my shoulder for the man who had brought me there that night. He was holding his stomach and rolling on the ground. He’d made it obvious that he didn’t care about me. And as I walked away, I was all too willing to return the favor.
After I’d hoisted myself back into the cab, my truck drove itself down the familiar roads. My father’s betrayal filtered through my brain with every turn. I had no idea where I was headed; after that night, I didn’t belong anywhere.
I hated my life and all that it was—but especially what it wasn’t.
God had already damned me to a future that would gradually fall silent. Teasing me with the present and taunting me with everything I would eventually lose. Even before my own fucking father had been willing to sign my death warrant just to save his own hide, I had already been drowning in the ocean of life. Every gasp of air was a struggle. Just as I would breach the surface, filling my lungs with hope and determination to make it through another day, I was forced back under—harder every time.
There was only one place where the world didn’t suck the life out of me. Regardless of how long I was there, seconds or hours, it offered me a reprieve and recharged my will.
I wanted to go home.
But home wasn’t where I laid my head every night. I didn’t actually live there at all, but it was the only place I felt alive. What I needed was the dream that only existed inside those four walls.
I needed her.
It had been six months since I’d last crawled out of that window. Six months since I’d watched her naked body take from me more than I’d ever thought I could offer.
Those same six months of living in the real world had destroyed me.
I needed the fantasy only she could provide.
But no matter what I dreamed, I knew she wouldn’t be there.
Fuck it. Pride aside. I’d go to her.
With a sharp U-turn over the median, I finally gave in to the pull that threatened to overtake me on a daily basis. I knew where she lived. I knew where she laid her head every night. But above all of that . . . I knew where I belonged.
With Eliza.
Five years earlier . . .
WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN YEARS old, I met Till Page in a condemned apartment one building over from my own. I immediately recognized him from school. It had been hard not to—he’d been gorgeous even as a boy. It was long before he found the gym or his tattered clothing came back in style. Back then, he was just a scrawny kid with shaggy hair and a wicked grin.
I didn’t know what kind of life Till had, but I knew it was probably better than my own. My parents were decent people; they just didn’t have time for me. Or, probably more accurately, any desire to make time for me. I was always a burden on them. Most nights, I hid away in my room, listening to them fight over money—or their lack thereof. I loved sneaking away to that run-down apartment. It was my own private fortress of solitude—until Till showed up one afternoon.
He scared me to death when he came crawling in that window. His eyes were red and his cheeks were notably stained with tears.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked, dusting off his already filthy pants.
I jumped to my feet, spilling my sketchpad and the few colored pencils I had managed to smuggle out of art class all over the peeling linoleum floor.
“Crap!” I yelled, rushing to pick them up. When I finished collecting my prize possessions, I glanced up to find him drying his eyes on the backs of his sleeves.
“You tell anyone I was crying and I’ll tell everyone you tried to kiss me.”
“I didn’t try to kiss you!” I shouted, appalled at the very idea—and maybe a little interested too.
“Then keep quiet or the whole school will think you did.”
My mouth must have gaped open at his attempted blackmail because he quickly finished with, “You might want to close your mouth before that spider on your shoulder takes it as an invitation.”
At the mere mention of a spider, I began screaming and flailing around the dingy room. I tore my shirt over my head, only vaguely aware that his roar of laughter had been silenced.
“Uh . . .” he stuttered when I finally stilled.