“Zane!” The hands grab my arms, shake me. My stomach turns, and I gag. I shake the touch off me and trip over something, falling into a side table. A lamp smashes to the floor, and I fall on the shards.
A figure looms over me, and I scramble backward, blinking furiously. The pressure in my chest turns into a sharp sting. The only sound I can hear is someone gasping as if drowning.
It takes me a moment to realize it’s me.
I kick the shards, make it somehow to my feet and locate the door. Time to get the hell out of this nightmare.
Yeah, like that’s ever gonna happen.
I sit in my truck, hands clenched on the wheel, my forehead resting on them. The small cuts on my hands burn. The blurriness takes some time to clear, and the phantom pain in my body lingers.
Dammit. Hasn’t been this bad in a while. Haven’t had this flashback for more than a year, although the damn memory walks my dreams.
It’s an old one, hazy and unclear, but the terror it carries with it is a thousand times worse than the memory of almost drowning. Even now the images, the sensations flash through my head, making it swim, tensing my body, and turning my stomach.
Shit, I’m gonna be sick. Opening the door of the truck, I barely have the time to bend over outside before I’m throwing up the sandwich I had for lunch. The bile burns my throat, but at least after that, my stomach isn’t trying to climb its way up anymore.
Fucking hell. I wipe my mouth and close the door. I’m a mess. First the flashback at the park, then this. This. This should never have happened. It doesn’t happen when I control the situation. If the chick doesn’t like my rules, I dump her and go look for another.
Damn. Dakota. I can still taste her on my tongue, so sweet.
I screwed up. Shoving her like that against the sofa, eating her up, then demanding to fuck her on the floor, and then... Then giving in, doing it face-to-face when I should have known better. When I should have known she’d wind her arms around my neck. Chicks like that. And when her hands touched the naked skin of my back and the burn scars…
Christ. I went batshit in front of her. I knew this was gonna end in disaster. And I can’t lose her. Oh fuck, I can’t. I slam my hand on the steering wheel.
Get real, Zane. How can you lose someone you don’t really have?
Just because I’m obsessed with her doesn’t mean she gives a fuck. I mean, she wants me, that’s clear, but she still doesn’t know me.
And she never will. Jesus. What was I thinking?
Don’t get attached to her. Don’t you know any better? The more attached you grow to someone, the sooner they die. That’s Zane’s Law.
It’s like Murphy’s Law, only bloodier.
I rev up the engine and roll away. Driving around town may calm me down. My heart is still going uncomfortably fast, beating a tattoo into my ribcage.
This is it, I realize as I drive through the quiet streets of the suburbs. I tried to fuck Dakota out of my system.
And it didn’t work. Damn, why didn’t it work? The thought of fucking someone else, anyone else, makes me wanna puke again. The urge to turn the truck around and go back to her is like a physical pull in my chest.
What the hell’s wrong with me these days?
Not that she’ll want anything more to do with you anyway. Hell, she’s probably already running in the opposite direction.
Damn strange how bad the thought hurts.
I drive through the town, my motions mechanical, a headache throbbing at my temples. Could things get any worse? I can see Dakota’s frightened face in my memory, the way she cringed when I lost my shit.
A memory of breaking things has me gripping the wheel harder. I’ll have to call Tessa and offer to pay for it. Crap, that’s all I need right now. As if Dakota knowing I’m certifiable isn’t enough. As if I can afford more damage. If I don’t find a roomie soon, I won’t be able to afford the apartment. I’ll have to move out.
Lose everything. Lose all that’s kept me sane so far.
I suck on the barbell in my tongue to the point of pain. The pressure is back in my chest. Don’t know what to do with myself. Haven’t done drugs in years, but the way my skin feels, stretched too tight over my bones, I sure wish I still knew a dealer.
Emma wouldn’t like that. Emma, who dragged me away from that shit, and forced me to decide what was important in my life. Taught me how to move past the memories and live in the now.
The now—where she’s dying. Where my world is crumpling around me. Where I’m back to square one. No, worse: where I’m down to my last fucking thread of sanity, because I’ve held hope in my hands and lost it.
The bartender has stopped giving me dirty looks and pours me another shot without much prompting.
He’s given up on me. He’s not the first or the last one.
I’m on a bender, on my own, again. Not that they guys haven’t tried to get me to go out with them. I think Asher is getting royally pissed off with me, and Erin is trying to guilt me into meeting with her and Tyler, even going as far as to mention Jax, her little son, saying he wants to see me.
Christ. I can’t meet them. Don’t wanna meet anyone. They’ll try to make me talk, and talking is the last thing I need right now. If I talk, I have to think, and if I think, I have to remember… remember that it’s all falling apart.
I drink and pretend I can go back to where I was before my world went to shit.
So this is how I find myself crawling into my truck on Saturday morning with a hangover from hell to drive to the hospital in Zion. I knock back a couple aspirin, dry, and stop to buy an extra-large coffee as I head out of town. The pounding in my head is deafening, so I crank up the music until the whole truck vibrates with the bass, and I can feel it in my chest, like an extra heartbeat.
The three hours of sleep I got aren’t doing much for me as I fall out of my truck and almost land on my ass in the parking lot of the hospital. Great. Just what Emma and Matt need: a guy drunk off his ass, barely able to function, let alone help.
“Zane.” Matt is standing outside Emma’s room, arms folded over his chest, his face haggard. It’s as if he’s the one who’s sick. I wonder if I look that way, too. We’re Emma’s mirrors.
“You okay, man?” Matt gives me a once-over as I walk unsteadily to the door and peer inside. “She’s asleep.”
“I’m fine.” I stare at her small face, relaxed in sleep, then at all the tubes and machines around her, and I want to puke again, only I don’t think there’s anything left in my stomach. “Fucking fine.”
Matt nods. I don’t ask him if he’s okay. What’s the use? Why would I assume he feels anything else but despair and rage and fear? Anything else but what I feel? He loves Emma. They have kids together.
“I’m going to grab a coffee,” I say. “Want some?”
And that’s when he seizes my arm and says the words I’ve been trying to avoid for weeks. “We need to talk.”