I inhale.
My fingers clench and unclench as I pull off my gloves so I can feel my palm, my shaking, sweat-slicked hand as I slide it beneath my shirt. The scars aren’t split open when I feel them. They’re healed, they’re proof I survived this before, and I can survive it again.
My hand slips up and presses over my chest. My heartbeat. Thundering, alive. Wanting tolive. Donovan’s favorite place to lay his head.
I can do this.
I exhale.
“I can do this.”
Shit… I haven’t had a panic attack inyears.
My side is burning, and my entire body is one unbroken line of shivering. At least the man beside me is dead as I lie next to him on the cool concrete, far enough away that the pool of blood beneath him isn’t soaking into my clothes.
He’s so big, though, and movinghurts. I drag in a deep breath, forcing my lungs to expand. It aches—fuck it aches—but nothing feels broken. My head hurts where he slammed me against the wall, but with the hood of my coat pulled up, I don’t think any blood got anywhere.
I glance down at my hand, to my swollen wrist, and flex my fingers.
At least it’s my left hand.
When I try to push myself into a sitting position, the overwhelming urge to vomit nearly makes me fuck up trying to keep the crime scene clean. I don’t know if it’s pain, or adrenaline… I don’t know if it’s all the memories trying to surface…
I just know I can’t do this.
I can’t move the body. He’s twice as big as I am, and he needs to be in pieces and weighed down somewhere in the water outside… and I…
I blink away another wash of heat caught in my lashes and use my good hand to feel around in my pocket. I scroll to the last person I texted and punch call before I can talk myself out of it.
Donovan’s voice is concerned when he answers, and I hate that I’m going to make that worse.
“Loh? Are you okay?”
I don’t speak, dragging in another ragged breath… because this is going to change everything.
He alreadychangedeverything… and now he’s finally going to get his wish. He’s going to see me in all my fucked-up glory. Maybe I am broken, but I have a feeling this is going to break me even more. I crawl across the room and yank my keychain from his eye, avoiding the blood on the floor. Donovan doesn’t need to see what I used his gift for.
“Shiloh… baby?” He sounds so… worried. I wonder if he’ll still feel that way once he’s seen what I’ve done.
I swallow hard and inhale one more time before I answer. “No, I’m not. I… Donovan, I need your help.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DONOVAN
The musty scentof decaying wood hits my nose as I walk through the dusty doors of the abandoned building Shiloh directed me to. Dust motes fly through the air as I step into the dim light, hoping that whatever black mold might be growing in this place doesn’t end up making me sick. The floorboards creak as I step deeper into the room, but they don’t buckle beneath me, which is a good sign. Crashing through a rotting wooden floor and landing in some spider-filled basement isn’t how I want to die, that’s for sure. I stop moving and scan the space, looking for Shiloh.
“Donovan,” he calls out, his voice weak and distant.
I turn and find him on the floor to my right, holding his head in his hands, his eyes wide and teeth gritted against the pain of raising his voice to shout at me. I hurry over to where he sits on the concrete, worry churning my guts as I kneel beside him.
“What happened? Why are you here?” I ask, reaching out to run my fingers over his jawbone.
He doesn’t respond, but I can feel him shaking beneath my touch. I do another scan of my surroundings, trying to recall ifShiloh ever mentioned something about a place like this at any time before but coming up blank.
And that’s when I see it.
The dead body on the concrete.
