As suspected, Colt didn’t stop, but they point me in the direction of the stairwell in which he disappeared.
I sprint down the steps as fast as I dare, bursting out into the parking lot, the cold of the early morning a shock to my senses.
It steals my breath, but my eyes are working fine.
And what I see makes my heart twist.
Colt is getting into his car.
I rush across the lot, grip the scissors I stole from Blake’s table…
And I jab them into the tire.
Forty-Two
Colt
I sense movement out of the corner of my eye, but I’m not thinking straight enough to react before the hiss of air reaches my ears.
I push against the door I’d been swinging shut, stopping it from closing, and glance out through the opening?—
To see Kylie straightening from my back tire, a pair of scissors in her hand.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I snap, getting out of the driver’s seat.
She shoves the scissors in her pocket and moves toward me, jabbing me in the chest with her finger. “First of all, don’t you dare take that tone with me.”
I rock back slightly, her tone cutting through the tornado of emotions and thoughts that have been twisting through my mind, gathering strength over the last hours until I’m trapped in the middle of the violent maelstrom, unable to think, barely able to see, hardly able to feel over the noise.
Except…she’s launching herself at me, wrapping her arms tightly around my middle.
“Second, I’m here,” she whispers. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
My mind is still in that storm, still barely functioning.
But her body against mine, her scent in my nose, those words in my ears, and the wind quiets a bit.
“I’m here,” she says again.
And it’s like the dam breaks.
Shuddering, I bend and bury my face in her hair, inhaling the scent of her. I wrap my arms around her waist and haul her against me. Soft curves, floral notes, gentle words stitching up the edges of the big, gaping wound inside me.
It’s still bleeding.
And I know it will take a long time to heal over—maybe it won’t ever completely go away.
But I’m not alone.
“She was raped,” I whisper, my eyes burning, and goddamn it, I feel like a fucking baby, but a tear slips out, soaking into the dark silk of her hair.
“I’m sorry that was done to her,” she whispers back. “You know how much I am. But that also has absolutely no bearing on the wonderful person you are.”
That flays me open and I clench my eyes closed—maybe if I can just shut them tightly enough it’ll stop the flow of tears.
Newsflash, it doesn’t fucking work.
But Kylie doesn’t make me feel like a pathetic, sniveling coward, doesn’t push me away, doesn’t tell me to stop crying. All she does is shift our positions, pulling my head onto her shoulder until I get myself together.
