Chapter One
Max
Bile crept up my throat as pain churned in my head. Yet it didn’t stop me from chugging back more of my beer, searching for oblivion. Unfortunately, it wasn’t at the bottom of the bottle. The din of the place grew, competing with the pounding in my skull. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Lights off!” someone shouted.
Christ.I winced, the yell reverberating in my head as total darkness enclosed me in its stifling hold. Slouching lower in the armchair, I opened my eyes and squinted at the tiny, flickering flames casting an eerie glow over several grinning faces.
Damn idiots! Just how many candles had they stuck on the cake? Because it sure looked like it could light up a small town.
“Happy twenty-first, Max!”
My head protested the loud chorus viciously. Twenty-one, and I felt a hundred. As if I’d lived a lifetime.
“Blow ‘em out. Make a wish.” Jack, the bastard—and my best friend since the crib—gave me a crooked grin. Near him, War, our other buddy, lifted his beer in cheers, then guzzled the thing down.
Jack just had to use my birthday as a reason to party and celebrate my return to civilization after my hiatus in the “wilds” as he called Peru.
Feeling as if my body weighed a ton, I pushed to my feet and crossed to the table in the dining room of the house I shared with Jack, each step jarring my throbbing head. I blew the candles once, twice…three friggin’ times before the flames hissed out.
The noise in the room ratcheted up with whoops and cheers. Slaps resounded, pelting my back, accompanied by well wishes as I headed to where I’d dropped my tote near the front door when I’d walked in a few hours earlier. I needed the relief it held. A blonde lunged at me, and I hit the wall like a bumbling drunk.
“Happy birthday, Max.” She hiccupped, her hands wandering over my chest. Her mouth slid over mine. She tasted of liquor and pizza.
My stomach revolted violently. The beer I’d swallowed backtracked up my throat. “Get off me—”
She flashed me a drunken grin. I shoved away before I hurled on her and lurched in the opposite direction toward the bathroom. I slammed inside, just in time to embrace the porcelain god for several long minutes.
Feeling as if I’d puked my guts, along with the contents of my stomach, I collapsed against the wall, mouth vile and my brain looking for ways to escape the pressure in my skull. I rubbed my temples and prayed for nothingness.
Christ, I hated these fucking headaches.
“Damn, Max, I didn’t realize you were so shit-faced.” Jack’s voice came from a distance. I ignored him, didn’t care what he thought or bother to correct him, really wishing I were drunk.
“Come on, man, let’s get you out of here.” He grabbed me. I was no lightweight. At six foot three, I stood an inch taller than him, but he hauled me up with little effort.
I pushed him away and shuffled for the basin, rinsed my mouth, and caught a glimpse of my reflection. Red-rimmed eyes, waxy-looking skin, and a bisected left eyebrow, the scar giving me a sinister air. For the rest of my life, the latter would serve as a reminder of the horror I was responsible for, the blood on my hands.
My fingers clenched the basin. Before my fist connected with the mirror, Jack dragged me out into the corridor.
“Let us, Jack.” Two giggling girls blocked us. “We’ll take good care of him,” one of them said. “We know ways guaranteed to make him feel heaps better. He’ll regret leaving San Francisco for so many months.”
Jack laughed. “You up for it, bro?”
Not so long ago, headache or not, I’d have taken them both upstairs, their warm bodies the only thing that could give me a moment of reprieve. Now? My dick didn’t even stir at the promise of sex.
Jack peered at me, then his brow creased in understanding. Wanting to avoid another one of his little talks—those ice-gray eyes, too damn perceptive at times—I made for the living room.
A shattering of glass exploded around me. I froze. Unable to breathe, to move, feeling as if a tanker had landed on my chest. I stared at the broken beer bottle lying in a wet, bubbling mess on the floor. The sounds yanked me by the throat to another place, another time…
Slashing rain, glass splintering, crunching metal…screams…
Jack grabbed my arm, hauling me back to the present. “It’s okay, it’s just a bottle.”
“Okay?” I rasped. “How can anything ever beokay?” Breathing hard, I wrenched free. “I have to get outta here.” I headed for the front, grabbed my tote lying near the door.
“Dammit, Max, you’re not fit to go anywhere!” Jack came after me.
