“Judah?” a soft, yet commanding female voice questioned.
“Yeah.”
“My name is Destri,” she replied. “Eli called me about your friend, Zeek. He mentioned you were concerned that you hadn’t heard from him. I’ve known him for a few years, so Eli thought I might be of some help in locating him.”
“Okay,” I sniffled, biting my thumb once again.
“Eli also told me about the circumstances surrounding how you know Zeek,” she went on, her voice softening even more. “I want to think we have the same interest in Zeek.”
“I’m so worried,” I cried.
“I’ll admit, it’s not like him to shut off his phone, so that is definitely a concern. That being said, he’s been ignoring me for over a week. Though, I’ll admit, that is entirely my fault.” She paused and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was waiting for me to ask why. It wasn’t my business to know, nor did I really care at the moment.
“From what I do know about you, I can safely say that Zeek has been torn up over you for a long time. Which is why I don’t think he’d ignore you.”
“Oh?” My eyes widened, having not been aware of that fact. “I–I didn’t know. I figured it was only me. He saved me. Well, he kept me sane, really. You know, when we were backthere. I figured he had forgotten all about me until the other day when we ran into each other. But something about this situation doesn’t feel right and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where he lives. And I don’t know anyone that might know where to start.”
“Calm down, sweet one.”
“Sorry,” I choked as black spots flitted over my vision from the lack of oxygen.
“It’s okay. How about this? I know where he lives. I would be more than happy to pick you up and the two of us can go over there together. We can decide what to do from there. I just don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves if his phone simply died or he lost it.”
Did she think something was wrong, too? Or was it just me be being stupid?I wondered. Occasionally, I would get it stuck in my head that something bad was going to happen and Eli would always have to talk me down, assuring me that I wasn’t crazy when it didn’t happen.
“Eli said the same thing.”
“He’s a smart man,” she agreed. “He gave me your address. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Of course.”
Ezekiel
My head throbbed in tune with my beating heart and my breathing was shallow. I tried to open my eyes but they were puffy and refused to cooperate. Though the pain I felt from my back was nothing compared to the pain that radiated in my skull.
Sadly, the pillow beneath my head did little to dull the banging. Whether it was coming from the door or my head, I could no longer be sure. Regardless, each bang echoed through my entire being. I groaned, swallowing a wave of nausea while silently willing it all to go away.
After puking my guts out for the tenth time, I no longer cared if it was light outside or if anyone needed me at this point.
It seemed every time my body would begin to relax enough to fall asleep, memories would plague me like never before. One after the other, images would blend together until it was nothing more than one fucked up mental hell.
Wasn’t living through hell once enough? For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why my mind had to play so dirty or why it thought I needed to continue to suffer every fucking second of my life.
When the pounding didn’t let up, it occurred to me that it was most likely coming from the door downstairs. Grunting out a number of curses, I threw my feet over the edge of the bed and wrapped the comforter around my shoulders in an effort to ward off the chill that refused to leave me.
As I descended the stairs, the banging grew louder, sending another wave of nausea flowing through me as the pounding in my head reached a crescendo.
If that’s Theo, his ass can stay outside in the cold.Serves him right, too,I inwardly groaned. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to deal with anyone at the moment. Especially Theo. All I wanted to do was to go back to bed and try to get rid of this migraine.
Part of me wanted to fling open the door and demand that whoever dared to bother me to go straight to hell so that I could return there myself. Instead, I slowly unlocked the deadbolt, turned the knob, and pulled the door open wide.
“Well, you certainly look like shit,” Mistress Destri said, not bothering to hold anything back.
I blinked, dumbfounded.Why the hell is she here? Especially today, of all days.
“What do you want?” The words came out rough and gritty from lack of using my voice over the last…well, I wasn’t entirely sure how long it had been since I’d last spoken. Hell, I didn’t even know what day it was.
