Or perhaps it was a knife and I saw what I wanted to see.
Perhapsthe man’s rough shout was my own. I could not tell, and combined with the push and pull of the crowd, my rusty concentration fractured when I needed it most. The man tore his arm free in the same moment a woman bumped me. Another micro-second in time, but it was all he needed.
The man melted away, swallowed by the masses, leaving me in the crowd with no phone, no weapon, and a newfound obsession with whatever my would-be killer had dropped on the floor. A fixation that roused the insatiable hunger that had driven me down the mountain in the first place.
Stone-cold sober, I ran from it, letting the crowd take me, elbows and shoulders, hair in my face, the scent of sweaty skin that was not mine. For years, I had craved time to myself—a day, an evening, an hour to justbe. Now I was alone so much that surrounded by strangers, even ones who wanted to kill me, were some of the only moments I felt truly human. But like everything, it did not last. Whoever these people were, they had the wrong hair and the wrong skin, and they did not smell of smoke and sandalwood.
Get out. You are vulnerable here.
Jake’s voice was as loud as the throbbing beat of the music.
Louder.
Perspective hit faster than I had the capacity to appreciate, and I was in motion before I chose to be, darting through the bustle of the bar and to the fire exit, resisting the pull of the main door and the busier strip. My assassin had escaped, but that did not mean he had conceded, and the quieter street gave me more room to manoeuvre. More chance to see him coming as I jogged to the beach, drawing him out if he wanted to play, following the glow and smoke of the bonfires on the sand.
Fight me by the water. We will see who drowns.
A strong sentiment. But no match for the relentless beast clawing at my insides, the abrupt enthusiasm for violence did not last either. I reached the water. No one followed. I spread my arms, tilting my face to the sky, inviting a sniper to take his shot.
Nothing happened, save an anticlimactic wave lapping over my feet.
Crouching, I dipped my hands in the ocean. Cool foam splashed my skin. A long time ago, such simple things had given me pleasure, but that version of myself was gone now, overcome by a bitter storm raging inside. A wretched thing—because that’s what I was...wretched.And craving more vodka.
You do not want vodka.A cold, hard fact as madness swept over me. Consumed me and drew me from the wet sand to the dry, my feet sinking into the soft grains, a sensation I had enjoyed when we first came here, but that I’d grown to hate as I made this walk over and over to the patsani who skulked by the bonfires.
The heat of the flames hit my face, prickling my skin with dry heat as I searched for the local boy who would help me live, die, or sleep; whichever came first.
Juan.
He was alone for once. A dealer without his friends, loitering by the fire furthest from the strip. With the crack of my assassin’s wrist echoing in my head, it should’ve struck me asstrange, but tunnel vision plagued me, and I did not give it much thought. I did not give much thought to anything, save how I planned to spend the next few minutes of my life.
In the light of the flickering bonfires, Juan saw me coming and rose to meet me, hand already in his pocket, familiar enough to predict I would not want conversation. That our encounter would be brief. He had stopped trying to talk to me after the first three times I had come here. He hadnevertried to touch me, but as our wordless encounter completed, his lanky fingers brushed my wrist, his eyes flared, and the raw fear in his young gaze jump-started my pulse all over again.
Run.
Me, not him. And this time, it was not Jake’s voice in my head. It was my own.
I spun away from Juan, fresh danger in the air sharpening the breeze, the paper-wrapped junk I was about to smoke burning my palm with the regret I didn’t feel in my heart.
Yet.
A word that filtered through my tunnel vision as I considered the half mile that stretched between this end of the beach and my Ducati. Despite my decrepit state, I was still fast. But my endurance was not much better than when Locke Halliwell had carried me onto the compound of the Rebel Kings, and the odds that I would be caught were high.
Too high.
I shoved the wrap in my pocket and moved faster, every nerve braced for a fight. For the impact of a blow my assailant would not survive—not this time.
A shadow passed behind me.
In front.
More than one.
It weakened my odds, but I had beaten better odds.
You are not fit.
A reality I could not ignore, but perhaps my reputation—and the broken bones I had already inflicted—preceded me, and I made it to my bike unscathed.
