“I’m observant.”
“Pfft, too observant.”
“Seriously, Dani. Be honest, how safe are you right now if I leave? Will you hurt yourself?”
She defiantly holds my stare before throwing her hands in the air.
“Fine, butI’llcall Melody.” She doesn’t answer my question, which tells me all I need to know.
I raise my eyebrows expectantly, waiting for her to place the call.
“Right this second?” she exclaims, throwing her hands up again.
“I’m not leaving until Melody gets here.”
Dani makes the call as I move out of her bedroom and make myself comfortable on her couch. Might as well, it’s going to take Melody a little bit to get here.
Dani joins me in the living room freshly changed, but she curls up on the other end of the couch. Wrapped in a blanket with bats and ghosts on it, she stares off, lost in her dark thoughts. Her cat, though hesitant as it looks my way, soon joins her on the back of the couch, keeping watch.
Thirty minutes later the doorbell sounds and I get up, turning on the screen to the camera at the apartment entrance. Melody looks as worried as I feel. I buzz her up and open the door, leaning against the doorway as I wait for her to come up the elevator.
The elevator dings and the doors open. Melody rushes out, coming to a halt before me.
“How bad is it, Kayden?”
Closing the door, I fill her in on what happened at the diner. “So, yeah, she’s not taking it very well right now. I need you to stay with her today, hell, maybe even the entire week. If you can’t stay, I’ll have no choice but to get her therapist involved. I don’t want to have to do that, Melody.”
“Fuck, Kayden, we might have to. What about her job? Is that covered?”
“I already spoke to Elaine. Dani has the week off and her shifts are being covered.”
“OK, good. I’ll ask Jax to bring me some more things so I can stay here as long as she needs me to.”
“Alright, you have my number if you need it. Please let me know if she gets worse.”
Melody lifts an eyebrow at my concern. “Falling for my friend so soon?”
I smirk as I run a hand through my hair and push off the doorway. “Yeah, something like that.”
She huffs as she starts to pass me but stops short of shutting the door in my face.
“I knew you had it bad. It was so obvious at the club,” she says with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Thanks for getting to her this morning, Kayden.”
Before I can turn to leave, Melody adds, “By the way, I know it’s you leaving the daisies. The Stonewell men have a stalking problem it would seem.”
With that, she shuts the door and I make my way back down to my truck. Leave it to Melody to put the pieces together. Shaking my head, I think back to Dani, worry eating away at my insides.
Dani is far from OK right now, but I’ll do everything in my power to help her battle her inner demons.
Eleven
Dani
Ifeel splintered. Torn and splintered to pieces. Derek doesn’t mean anything to me anymore, so I know it’s not a direct response to any lingering feelings—I was done with him long ago. No, I haven’t felt fear like that since Anthony Romani and the events at the diner dragged me right back to that horror house. The heart-pounding, adrenaline-spiking fear had me literally trembling as I hid behind that booth. I only felt safe once Kayden returned from his surveillance of the diner, and therein lies another problem.
Kayden feels like a safe house in a world filled with evil. I know his blue eyes have entranced me these past few years, and being back in his presence is intoxicating. The chemistry between us is electric, but ultimately I’m scared. I’m scared of the darkness I sometimes catch in his gaze, like it wants to pull me under and completely ruin me—mind, body, and soul. I’m even more scared of the other emotions I see in him, the ones that threaten to make me fall head over heels for this man. He looks at me like I’m the most precious thing in the world. It’s the same look that was in his eyes when he rescued me.
Sitting on the couch, I contemplate all of this while waiting for Melody to come into the apartment. Kayden got up to meether in the hallway, but they’ve been out there for a few minutes. I can only imagine what they’re saying about me. Do I want to take my life? No, no way. Was there a fleeting moment where I wanted to give into that voice in the back of my mind to cut my wrist, to let out this pent up energy—this nothingness—before it swallowed me whole? To distract myself from my inner pain by inflicting outer pain? Yes, yes there was. However small that voice was, I couldn’t lie and say it didn’t cross my mind. Just more proof that I should go back to therapy and regulate my medications.
