He takes a step closer, and I flinch.
“Don’t fucking come near me!” I step away back, raising my finger in caution.
The Joe I knew, the Joe I thought was gone forever… He wouldn't be looking at me with such bitter hatred. His eyes, oncewarm like summer skies, now pierce through me like shards of ice.Who are you?
“Surprised to see me breathing?” His mouth twists into something between a smile and a sneer. “I bet you are. You have an interesting way of grieving.” He chuckles.
“Don’t you dare!” I sob-scream at him, jolting from the lightning in the sky. “How dare you!” I stalk towards him and push his chest hard once, twice, and punch his chest with a sob.
He’s a wall of steel, unbending, and a sentiment I never imagined I'd ever feel for Joe is a blistering rage that creeps up my spine like poison ivy, spreading its tendrils through my ribs and burning a raw, gaping hole into my chest, leaving me vulnerable and waiting for the final thrust of a spear to finish me off completely.
“Wh — why?” I scream my voice screeching with pain, holding my heart slipping through my fingers to hit the pavement.
He steps into me with deliberate slowness, his hand gripping my waist. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. But I promise, I will explain.” His face buries into my neck.
I'm paralyzed, shaking. “J- Joe, I don’t u- understand,” I say, caught between the desperate need to run and the magnetic pull keeping me laced to the ground. My body betrays me, trembling violently as he inhales me and droplets of rain peppers our skin. His lavender cologne smacking me in the face with memories, painfully taunting me.
“I missed you, Sara… You have no fucking idea,” he murmurs in my ear, but it sounds like regret and a punishment forthcoming of the revelation.
“Joe, please—” I whisper, but he cuts me off with a sharp shake of his head.
“Let’s go home.” He nods his head towards the car, his voice dangerously calm.
The wordhomeslices through me like a blade.What home?
“But you were—” I start.
“Dead?” His eyebrow arches. “Clearly not. Now, come on. It’s not safe.”
When his hand wraps around mine, I look down to our entangled fingers, the eerie and familiar warmth zaps across my body and I follow his steps, feeling as lost as I ever felt but I drop to my knees, scraping skin against the gravel as I claw at the scattered flowers.
“Let me leave something for my brother,” I choke out, my voice splintering like glass. “My brother isactuallyunder that dirt.” Joe's eyes flicker with sympathy for a fleeting moment, a kindness I used to adore, yet even a drought holds more water than the depths of his kind heart as he looks at me. For a second our faces are inches apart, his breath scorching my skin, and I'm drowning in the familiar blue eyes I've cried myself to sleep over for months, months! They're burning with something feral now, something that makes my blood freeze and I’m hit with a truth, that I loved a man I have never truly known and my heart splits in two with one half reaching toward the Joe I thought buried, and the other half recoiling from this stranger wearing his skin.
We walk to the car after I leave what was left of my pathetic bouquet of flowers on my brother’s grave, with Joe holding my hand tightly in case I was thinking of bolting. My phone is blowing up, but Joe rips it out of my hands before I can answer Liam. He’s most likely worrying, and so am I. Is Joe going to hurt me? That question alone breaks my heart, and now I understand why people have deep trust issues.
“How did you do it?” I ask, as Joe opens the passenger’s door for me, the smell of wet pavement surrounding us as the rain falls harder, and I turn around to face him. He cages me in with one hand.
“Which part, beautiful?” He tilts his head, his thumb tracing my bottom lip, my breath catching.
“Have Liam’s security leaving me here alone?”
“Oh, that was easy. I called that loser Max, and mimicked Liam’s voice. He’s fired for sure.” He smiles, triumphant. “Twins, remember? And I bumped into you earlier, but your so-called bodyguard was a little overprotective.” He pinches his fingers together leaving a small gap.
“Joe… Why?” I take a breath, tears pooling at my eyes, “How could you do this to us?”
“I did what I had to do,” he says firmly, a muscle ticks in his jaw with perhaps an ounce of regret, which leaves me reassured, just a little.
“Get in.” He lifts an eyebrow and removes his arm.
As I spin around to get inside the car, we both hear a metallic click that slices through the air. I freeze instantly.
Joe whirls around with lightning speed, a gun materializing in his hand from somewhere beneath his jacket. My heart hammers against my chest as I see who's standing there, weapon raised.
Liam.
Our eyes lock for a split second, a consolation to see me alive flashes before his gaze shifts to Joe.
The transformation in Liam is immediate and devastating.
