My hands curled into fists.I was protecting her.
Another image came, this one of Autumn staring up at me, her face streaked with tears and her full bottom lip quivering. I’d touched her, put my hand against her face.
You wanted her, the voice accused me.You wanted her and it scared you, and now you’re here.
I’m protecting her!
You’re lying to yourself. That’s all you ever do is lie. Take the girl and leave. Leave this place.
Running a hand through my hair, hating how goddamn long it was getting, I blew out a furious breath. There were too many women in my life—too many people, period—and shit was getting too damn complicated. I couldn’t just leave. Autumn was too new, they’d never let her past the gates, and if I pushed the issue I’d end up with a battalion of guns aimed at me.
Besides, where the fuck would we go? There wasn’t anywhere to go. Autumn might want to return to whatever hole she crawled out of, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to live in a pile of dirt.
So go on then, the voice sneered.Go on and fuck her, you spineless piece of shit.
I didn’t respond; I was already storming across the room, unzipping my jeans as I went. I was going to fuck Liv. I was going to fuck her because I had to, because if I didn’t, she’d do her damnedest to get to Autumn.
The voice laughed.Lies, it said, laughing hard and long, louder than ever before.
Gripping hold of Liv’s hip with one hand, I positioned myself at her entrance with the other.
“I knew it,” she said in a low voice, squirming against me, pushing back and forcing me inside her. “I knew she wasn’t enough for you. Tell me she’s not enough for you.”
Grunting, I shoved inside her. Liv’s pussy swallowed me whole the same way it had done many times before; the same way Liv swallowed everything she touched, utterly and without mercy. I wrapped one hand around her thigh, spreading her wide for me, and my other around her throat, also things I’d done hundreds of times before.
And the voice continued to laugh. It laughed until my head started to throb.
And then, while she bucked and cried beneath me, I fucked her, just as I’d done so goddamn many times before. But unlike all the other times, the anger never came, the need to hurt her never fucking came. If anything, all I felt was the need to finish, to fuck her faster and end this bullshit as soon as possible. Then, unlike ever before, with anyone ever, I found myself not even wanting to finish, and consequently grew soft inside her.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Liv shrieked. She slammed her ass up against my hips, twisting her body so viciously, she had to be hurting herself. “Hurt me, you fuck! Fuck me harder!”
The voice began to laugh so loudly then, so cruelly that the ache in my head turned downright stabbing.
I’d never been afraid of pain. I could take it or leave it, ignore it if I had to, even enjoy it to an extent. But this pain was different. This wasn’t just physical. This went deeper than skin and bone to a place buried within me; the same place that I’d used to hide from pain was now giving it to me in spades.
Flashes of faces burst free in my mind’s eye. Red hair. Blue eyes. Dimples. Little hands. Little smiles. Big, wide-eyed grins. And then they were gone, replaced with eyes clouded by infection and colorless skin sagging off bones. Little hands covered in blood, little smiles turned to snarls. Gunshots echoed in my subconscious, the force of them causing me to sway heavily.
I staggered backward, feeling sick, unable to hear anything but the laughter in my head, to feel anything but the stabbing pain behind my eyes. Pulling up my jeans, I turned to leave.
The rest was a blur.
The color red was all I could see. That goddamn red door, and red hair, and little hands covered in bright red blood. And the red on the American flag bleeding into the other colors until the flag was nothing but red and dripping, no longer swaying in the wind but hanging limply from its pole, the red bleeding onto the ground below it, seeping into the earth, spreading outward as far as the eye could see.
I burst free from the building out into the dimming sunlight, gulping down lungfuls of warm stagnant air. Quickly, I rounded a corner and gripped the stone wall, grateful for the shade and privacy. Bending down on one knee, I placed my hands on the cracked concrete and heaved, emptying my stomach contents. It was nothing much, mostly water and whatever crumbs I remembered to shove down my throat, but that didn’t stop my body from reacting. I continued to dry heave until I was covered in sweat and breathless with exertion.
When the heaving finally stopped, I swiped the back of my shaking hand across my mouth and pushed myself to my feet. The laughter had stopped, and the pain in my head was slowly receding. Leaning back against the wall, I took several deep breaths and faced the sky.
I’d wanted to touch Autumn twice now. The first time was when I’d woken up beside her and watched her sleep, and now today. But once I had, once I’d felt her smooth softness, I’d wanted more than that.
But she wasn’t Jenny, and unlike Wildcat, she didn’t even resemble Jenny. And I hadn’t wanted a woman like that, needed to just touch a woman, one simple touch, since ... Jenny. And to top it off, she was too young, naive as hell, and completely off her damn rocker.
But I liked that about her, didn’t I?
I should have never said her name. There was too much power in a name, too many memories associated with it. I’d said her name and let her back in, and with her came the memories, and with the memories came the guilt. The motherfucking crippling guilt.
You didn’t need to say my name, Adler. I’ve always been here. We’ve all been here. Right where you left us.
Chapter Twenty-Six
