So she would be a mistake.
“Understood,” she said, with far more composure than she felt. “So go,” she commanded. When he still stood there staring at her, she blurted out, “Get the fuck out.” The sooner he was gone, the sooner she could fall apart.
He didn’t even flinch at her language. He nodded once, looking so damned stoic. The same impenetrable mask he wore the first day she met him at Devil’s Rock.
Without another word, he slipped out of her bedroom and out the front door.
HE CURSED AS he slammed into his truck and pulled out of Briar’s parking lot. Regret welled up bitter as blood in his mouth, but not for walking away from Briar. That had to happen. She thought she loved him, but she didn’t. She was wrong about that. She couldn’t love him.
He was getting out just in time. Hell, he probably should have gotten out sooner. When he initially tried. Before she showed up at Roscoe’s and threw his world off kilter.
He wouldn’t lose control again, and Briar made him do that. He felt too much around her. He wanted her too much. Cared about her too much. His mind shied from thinking about love in relation to her. It wasn’t love. He came from a world where you staked a claim. Prison taught him about taking, having. Marking what was his. That was his instinct when it came to Briar. Not love.
She was risk, and he had vowed to leave risk behind when he stepped out of that prison.
He regretted ever starting this between them in the first place. He regretted that he hurt her. He should have fucked his way through half of Roscoe’s instead of having something clean and sweet like Briar.
His phone started ringing in his pocket. A quick glance down revealed his aunt’s name. He felt a flash of worry. He hoped everything was okay with Uncle Mac.
He answered, “Hey, Aunt Alice, everything okay?”
“Knox, have you seen the news?”
“No, what’s wrong?”
“There was a riot at the prison.”
His stomach heaved. “North?”
“We just got a call. They took him to Memorial Hospital.”
“What’s his status? Will they let us see him?” He knew the only way they let family visit inmates in the hospital was when the prognosis was grim. As in deathbed grim.
“Not yet. The social worker said he’d call back with an update.”
“I’m on my way. Be there in ten minutes.”
He hung up and stared straight ahead into the setting dusk, his gaze burning. The guilt he felt for leaving North behind twisted and swirled like an angry hive of bees in his stomach. It was just one more thing. One more weight added to the piles of bricks that already crushed him.
He should have been there. Then maybe North wouldn’t be in the hospital now.
He pressed down on the accelerator, eager to get home and be near the phone when they called back.
TWENTY-FOUR
DEEP SHADOWS DRAPED the hospital room. A dim glow radiated from the panel above Reid’s hospital bed, saving the space from complete blackness. Someone outside his room laughed as they passed his door. The footsteps faded. Otherwise the hospital was quiet with that humming quality of a building that never shut off. Like him. Reid was wired tight. Tension knotted his shoulders as he reclined in the bed. He never shut down. Never turned off. He couldn’t afford to. Not until he was a pile of ashes in a box. Then, he’d rest.
Doctors, nurses, and other personnel worked the six floors of Sweet Hill Memorial with seemingly little thought to the felon in Room 321. Exactly the way he wanted it. He’d been here eight days. Eight days since he was taken from Devil’s Rock in an ambulance. In that time, he’d been an exemplary patient. He withstood all the poking and prodding without complaint. He slept and he ate. You could say whatever you wanted about hospital food, but compared to prison food it was five--star cuisine.
He’d used his time to store up energy and plot his next move. He had only one chance and he couldn’t fuck it up.
He’d be sent back soon. He wasn’t hooked up to any beeping machines anymore. His wounds had pretty much healed, leaving only the black lines of stitches and fresh, itching scabs. No threat of infection or continued bleeding. His arm sling could come off in a few days. According to the doctor, he was lucky to be alive. Half an inch to the left and the shiv would have hit his heart.
He’d said nothing when the doctor told him that, looking at him so expectantly. As though Reid might express relief or gratitude. He might be alive and breathing, but he had died a long time ago. Nothing but a walking ghost now.