Page 201 of Revv

Chapter Twenty One

Revel

Jail is quieter than I expected.

Not actually quiet. There’s a guy coughing somewhere down the hall, the scrape of rubber soles over concrete, a metal door slamming hard enough to echo through the holding area.

Fluorescent lights buzz overhead with that ugly white glow that makes everybody look sick.

But compared to my head, the place is fucking peaceful.

I’m sitting with my elbows braced on my knees, staring down at my hands. Dried blood is cracked across my knuckles, dark around the split skin.

Some of it is mine, but most of it isn’t.

Every time I flex my fingers, the skin pulls and burns. I rub my thumb over one of the cuts anyway, watching a thin line of fresh red push through.

I should probably care about the fact I’m sitting in a holding cell after beating a man unconscious in the middle of a grocery store.

But I don’t.

All I can think about is Cece.

I was supposed to be at dinner for seven, and I have no idea what time it is now but I’ve been here for what feels like hours.

The cops who arrested me took my phone, wallet, belt, basically anything that might tell me I still belong to my own life, then walked me through enough hallways and processing rooms that time stopped meaning much.

But I know it’s late.

Too late.

I lean back against the concrete wall and close my eyes.

She trusted me.

That thought has been eating through me since the cuffs clicked around my wrists.

Cece stood in that paddock today, kissed me in front of everyone, looked me dead in the face and told me what time to be at her house and I told her I’d be there.

That I would always, be there.

I fucking promised her, and she believed me.

That’s the part that keeps digging the knife in.

“Fuck.”

The guy sitting across from me glances up, but I don’t give a shit. I drop my head back against the wall and stare at the ceiling, jaw tight enough to hurt.

When they finally gave me my one call, I called Lena.

Not Cece.

And fuck if that decision hasn’t been eating me alive ever since.

Every part of me wanted to hear Cece’s voice, tell her I didn’t fucking blow her off, that I wasn’t out somewhere forgetting about her while she sat at her mom’s waiting for me. But this shit with Travis isn’t mine to hand out. Lena lived it. Lena survived it. She deserved to hear from me that I’d found him before I started dragging what happened to her into my relationship just so I could make myself look less like an asshole.

So I called her.