Singe (Guardian Protection #1)

No coughing. No choking.


Just…

Breathing.

Blink.

And then, with one flash of her gaze over my shoulder, that vibrant light dancing in her pale-blue eyes exploded into a million shades of darkness.

Blink.

“No,” she breathed, stumbling back into her stool, knocking it over.

I instinctively glanced over my shoulder but saw no one of note.

Johnson rose beside her, his hand going to her bicep.

Blink.

And then, all at once, time caught up. The bar detonated into a flurry of activity.

“Don’t you dare!” Devon shouted to someone.

“Motherfucker,” Alex cursed.

“Rhion!” Johnson yelled as she bolted toward the entrance.

I wanted to open my arms. To finally catch her.

But, like in the past, I stood motionless as I watched her fly away.

Johnson’s shoulder slammed into mine as he rushed after her, Alex only steps behind him. Devon, however, charged to the other side of the bar, shoving customers out of his way.

I shook my head and turned back in time to see her disappear out the door.

I blinked again, and much like the first time we’d met, she was gone.

One blink was all it ever took for me to lose her.

“Rhion,” I whispered to myself, rubbing my hand over the scars on the back of my head as if it could erase the memories.

“Oh fuck!” Lark barked, plowing over a stool and several people as he raced outside.

I followed him with my gaze, and the second I saw her, my throat locked up tight. No air in. No air out. Just a bullet of panic ricocheting in my hollow chest.

“No.” I breathed, storming to the bar’s glass door, praying that my eyes were deceiving me.

But they weren’t. I’d recognize that woman anywhere, but especially in the middle of the busy four-lane Chicago street with cars swerving around her.

Adrenaline blasted through my veins, traveling straight to my legs. I was out the door before I’d realized my feet were moving.

“Rhion!” Johnson bellowed, slamming his fists down onto the hood of a car that had nearly clipped him.

Alex was doing his best to stop traffic, but they were flying around him, turning that street into a real-life game of Frogger.

The roar of blood thundered in my ears as I darted out into traffic, weaving in and out of cars as I made my way toward her. I was acting on pure instinct, unable to process the fact that she was actually there.

Much less that I was at risk of losing her.

Again.

Her motions were frantic as she raced away, but her head didn’t swing from side to side with caution or respect for the oncoming cars. Getting to the other side of that street as quickly as possible was her only concern.

Meanwhile, getting to her was mine.

People were yelling. Horns were blaring. Brakes were squealing.

But her feet kept moving.

Therefore, so did mine.

My mind fought to remain in the present, but the closer I got, I no longer saw a woman in the middle of traffic. I saw a wounded butterfly with flames closing in all around her. Bile rose in my throat as I sucked in a gasp of the cool night air. Only it was smoke that filled my lungs, a searing pain that formed at the back of my neck, and a blast of heat that threatened to take me to the ground.

And then a deep, guttural sound tore through me, shredding me from the inside out as I watched her fall. Again.

“No!” I yelled as she hit the pavement.

Cars locked their brakes up and swerved onto the curb to try to avoid her. In that moment, I longed for the slow motion of when our gazes had met because it was all happening so fast that I could barely keep her in my sights.

I lurched toward her, but I’d never reach her in time. A fact that burned so deeply it felt like my soul had been dipped in acid.

I’d failed her.

Again.

Johnson, however, did not.

With one swoop, he hooked his arm around her waist and lifted her off the ground, her colorful wings dangling at her sides as he held her to his chest, her terrified, blue eyes finding mine over his shoulder. Her shaking hand reached out to me, and her lips moved in the pattern of my name. The idea that she needed me as I stood yards away sliced through me like a rusty blade.

With three long strides, he carried her up onto the sidewalk.

To safety.

It was more than I’d ever been able to do for her.

The all-too-familiar feeling of guilt rolled in my stomach.

Johnson carried her toward the front door of the Guardian Protection building, and that should have been the end of it. It was time for me to go. And not just back to the hotel that had become my makeshift home over the last week. It was time to leave for good.

Maybe go back to LA.

Maybe New York.

Maybe somewhere completely off the grid until I could get my shit together.

Any of those options would have been a good decision.

But none of them would have given me her—even if she wasn’t mine to take. I had no place in her present, despite the burns on the back of my head and my neck that forever made her a part of mine.

But I’d spent four years ignoring the immense need to reach out to her. To check on her. To make sure her breaths had started to come easily and her tears had finally dried.

My mind screamed for me to let her go and spare her the trip down memory lane it appeared she was so desperately trying to avoid. But it seemed my legs didn’t listen to logic any more than my heart, because even as indecision warred inside me, I jogged straight to the doors, my heart slamming against my ribs with every step.

I caught sight of the red tips of her hair as the elevator doors began to close. Ignoring the decent and rational side of my mind, I shoved a hand between the doors and slid my large body inside.

An inexplicable sense of relief washed over me as I took in her uninjured body. It didn’t matter that she was tucked into Johnson’s side or mumbling repeatedly that she wanted to go home.

She was there.

My attention snapped up to Johnson as he tightened his arm around her waist and shifted her closer against his chest. It was a pointed move, one of possession that echoed loud and clear through the elevator. But I wasn’t there to take her from him. I didn’t actually know why I was there at all.

As he held my stare, I prepared for an argument. Though I didn’t know what I could have said. Despite what I told myself, I didn’t know the woman clinging to his chest.

Jesus, what the fuck am I doing?

I opened my mouth, but Johnson shook his head and lifted a finger to his lips. He was pissed—that much was clear. But there was something else showing in his eyes. Compassion? Understanding? Tolerance?

When the elevator came to a stop on the third floor, he guided her off. Confusion crinkled my brow. Guardian was on the fourth floor. However, as soon as her feet made it over the elevator threshold, she took off at a sprint, not slowing as she waved a security card in front of her door and darted through it. When the door slammed behind her, I raked a hand through my hair and turned to see Johnson glowering at me from outside the elevator.