Chapter Three
My fingers thrummed against the steering wheel as I ticked off the minutes before heading toward the arts building. Eight fifty-two. One minute had passed since the last I’d checked the clock. I willed myself not to look again, but my gaze involuntarily flicked back. I’d planned to get out of my car at eight fifty-seven, which would give me exactly three minutes to get to class—enough time to make it before the lecture started, but late enough that James would already be seated.
At least that was my hope.
Resting my head on the upholstered seatback of my Honda, I tried to prepare myself. What would happen when I saw him again? Would the visions return? I planned to avoid him, to ignore him, but who was I kidding? James haunted me even when he wasn’t in the same room. I gripped the steering wheel and dropped my forehead against it. This was ridiculous. I was ridiculous.
Grabbing my bag, I flung myself from the car and marched toward my art history class. My feet hesitated when I approached the door of the building, but I forced myself to move forward. I needed this class to graduate, and dropping it wasn’t an option. With a deep breath, I walked inside. Nothing, and especially not James, was going to make me miss my graduation.
The building was warm, bordering on hot, but after slogging through the cold, it was a welcome change. I turned down the first hallway and reminded myself to breathe. I was only three rooms away from class when the door opened and out walked the one person I was trying to avoid.
I stopped in the middle of the hall and fought with my conscience. Should I continue and pretend I hadn’t seen him, or should I turn and run? Through the crowd, James saw me, and his entire person became hyperfocused on me. He walked with purposeful strides, and there’d be no way to avoid him. I did the only thing I could think to do. I turned and walked the other way.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I chanced a look back and this time said it out loud. James was only a step behind me.
“Are you seriously running from me?” He sounded incredulous, and my cheeks, traitors that they were, flamed with heat.
I stopped walking but didn’t turn, praying the flush would fade before I faced him. Biting down on my lip, I tried to come up with a logical excuse, but my mind was a perfect blank. What was wrong with me?
He’s what’s wrong with you. I shook it off and groaned with frustration.
James took a cautious step and approached me like I was made of combustible things. His eyes roamed over my face, and the longer we stood, the less apprehensive he looked. I couldn’t say the same for myself.
He let out a deep breath and shoved his hands into his pockets. “See, that wasn’t so hard.”
Someone bumped my shoulder and pushed me one step closer to him. My insides reacted with violence. Heat exploded under my coat, and something between panic and excitement paralyzed my body.
With leaden feet, I stepped back. “I’m sorry. I know I’m coming across—rude—but this?” I gestured between us. “I can’t do this. Not with you.”
“Do what? Talk?” He looked at me long and hard. “I’m not asking for anything else.”
When he said it like that, it sounded so simple, like my body wasn’t about to implode and I could forget the visions that bombarded me in his presence.
“Just talk?” I asked.
He nodded. “We could go to the Center. Get something to eat?”
“I’ve got class,” I said automatically.
His lip twitched in a sort of smile. It was uncomfortable, and it was gone as fast as it had come—so fast, I wondered if it’d ever been there at all. “The one you were just running from, or another I don’t know about?”
“I wouldn’t say I was running. Just…walking quickly in the opposite direction.”
There was a long pause before he spoke. “You know, you can’t avoid me forever.”
He had me there. James nodded to the door. His bold features softened when he held out his hand. Taking it seemed like a simple thing to do, but fear was a powerful thing, and it left my arms limp at my sides. I stared at the scars that mangled his skin and wondered what would happen if I placed my hand in his.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, his voice flat.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, and my gaze snapped to his. “I know. I didn’t think—” I swallowed and rolled my eyes to the ceiling. “I’m just nervous.”
He contemplated me for a moment, his brow folding down, then held the door open. “Me, too,” he said.
I glanced outside and back toward the classroom. “I really shouldn’t skip.”
There was that almost smile again. “It’s art history, not neuroscience.”
I nodded but warred with what to do. “I know as much about neuroscience as I do about art. I need this class to graduate.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing you’ve got me.” His smile was gone, his face serious. “Art and its history are kind of my thing. I won’t let you fail.” There was something about the look in his eye, or maybe in the way his lips formed the words, that made me believe him, and the part of me that was terrified of the visions he provoked faded into the background.
“Okay,” I said as I passed through the door he still held wide. “But I can’t stay long.”
“I know,” he said. “You’ve got class.” A hint of a smile played across his lips as he fell into step at my side.
James and I didn’t speak the entire way to the Center. We didn’t talk as we grabbed a coffee, and even after we sat, we didn’t say a word until approximately three sips into our drinks.
“So, I take it you’re not an art major,” James said. He sat with his cup between both hands, his forearms resting on the table.
I smiled despite my nerves. “No, definitely not. I can’t draw stick people. I’m a psych major.”
James raised his brows and leaned back in his seat. “Really? What do you want to do?”
“Graduate school, first. I want to be a therapist. Help kids if I can.” I took a sip and James studied me. “What about you?” I asked. “What’re you studying?”
“Graphic design and art.”
“Double major?” When he nodded, I said, “Wow. I bet your stick people are more impressive than mine.”
He didn’t smile, but his lips did purse together. “It would be an injustice to my subject to draw a stick person.”
“Really? What’s your subject?”
James let out a long breath while his gaze searched my face and roved over my neck and shoulders. “I’ll show you sometime.”
His words were weighted like there was something he wanted to say but couldn’t. Staring at the laminate tabletop, I took a long sip of my coffee.
“Can I ask you something?” James asked.
“Maybe. Depends on the question,” I said, too scared of what he might ask to commit.
“Why do you keep running from me?”
I could feel a blush rise to my cheeks, and I hoped it wasn’t enough to notice. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
He tilted his head to the side, and his eyes narrowed. “You run every chance you get. What is it about me that scares you?”
“Nothing,” I said too quickly, mortified that he would think otherwise. “I’m not scared of you. I’m— It’s complicated.”
He dropped his hands flat on the tabletop. His skin was mottled like he’d been burned. My eyes traced the scars to his wrists, where they disappeared under the sleeves of his shirt, and I wondered how far they went.
“A lot of things are complicated, but this?” His hand gestured between us, and as it fell, his fingers brushed mine. “This shouldn’t be.”
My entire body tensed and shivered. The place where the edge of our fingers touched was ablaze with heat, and my insides melted as his hand slowly worked to cover mine. His skin was hot, and it seared mine all the way down to the bone. I wanted to pull away, to free myself from whatever this was, but I couldn’t.
The edges of my vision blurred and blackened. My surroundings shifted, and I was no longer sitting across from him at the Center. I was in the back of a darkened alleyway—huddled in fear.
I shook myself until my vision cleared. “What’re you doing to me?” I asked as I pulled my hand from under his.
He stood from his seat, pulled out the chair next to mine, and sat so close our knees knocked together.
“Nothing. I’m not doing anything. But you feel it, too?”
No. No. This was an illness, not a shared feeling. This was me turning into her. I shook my head and denied his words, but James wasn’t so easily discouraged.
“I know you do. Tell me you do.” His hand reached toward my face and hovered an inch off my skin. For one agonizing moment, I thought he was going to pull away, but instead, he cupped his hand around my cheek, and I closed my eyes. Being near James was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was more than attraction. It was magnetic and impossible to ignore. His touch was as thrilling as it was terrifying, and my instincts rocketed between pulling away and leaning in.
His hand opened wide and splayed against my jaw before he curved his fingers around the back of my neck. I pressed my legs together, overwhelmed with the sensation of him, and knotted my fists in my lap.
“Don’t be afraid of this—or of me,” he whispered. His breath was warm, and I shivered as it brushed my neck.
From somewhere through the haze of my jumbled thoughts, I heard gunfire, distant but calling, and my breath caught in my throat. I shook my head, and as difficult as it was, I detangled myself from his embrace.
He sighed and scrubbed his hands against the scruff on his cheeks before letting them fall to his lap.
“This isn’t about you.” I picked at a loose string hanging from my sleeve.
“Then what is it? Because when I’m around you—” His words fell away in frustrated silence, and all I could hear was that gunshot ringing in the night.
“Don’t make this into something it’s not. I don’t even know you.”
Even though I’d said them with as much kindness as I could, the words hurt to say. How could a disease control my thoughts—my desires? No wonder my mother didn’t want to live like this. I’d only experienced it a couple of days, and I was already adrift. Lost. Pulled in too many directions to be whole. Sickness swelled in my stomach, and anger boiled in my heart. I stood too fast, and the backs of my knees shoved my chair away.
“I have to go,” I said.
“You’re running.” I heard him call after me, but I was too upset to care that he was right.
By the time Friday rolled around, I’d given up going to art history, but I did make the other three classes on my schedule. I hadn’t heard from James—not that I would’ve; he didn’t have my phone number—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about him every minute of every day. I could barely concentrate.
That evening, Gracie fell on the couch next to me, scattering my notes and pushing a textbook to the ground. In her hand was a bottle of cheap chardonnay and two skinny glasses. She placed one on the coffee table and poured wine into the other.
“You’re pouring wine into champagne flutes,” I told her as she filled the first.
Gracie looked at the glass and shrugged. “They all drink the same.” She handed it to me and poured the second. “A little birdie told me you skipped your Renaissance art class today.”
“Who told you?” She raised a single eyebrow, and I answered my own question. “Xander.” James must’ve spoken to him.
“That’s odd for you, don’t you think?”
“People skip classes all the time. It’s no big deal. I emailed the professor, and he sent me the PowerPoint presentation.” I gestured to my notes. “It’s taken care of.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said. “I’m not buying it.” Her eyes, dark as mine were light, narrowed. “Something’s off with you, and it’s been like this all week.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” She rolled her eyes at my response, knowing it was a lie. “Okay, it’s been a rough week. This semester’s crazy hard.”
She downed her wine and poured another. “What? They don’t hold that much,” she said, gesturing to the glass. “And school’s always been hard, but you’ve never been like this. You’re distant.” I let her top off my glass. “Secretive.”
Gracie’s known me too long for me to deceive her, so I decided to go with the truth, or with part of it, at least. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom.”
Gracie put the bottle down, moved my notes to a pile on the floor, and slid closer to me. “What about?”
I grimaced into my glass. “It’s nothing really. I just have a lot to think about.” I drank the remainder of my wine in a long gulp.
“You know, you get like this every couple of years.” She turned to better face me. “You’re not going to end up like her.”
I should’ve known Gracie would figure it out. She always did. “You don’t know that.”
Gracie smiled. “Yes, I do. You’re going to be fine.”
I lifted my shoulders and let them fall heavily back down. “I used to think so, but I don’t know anymore. I’m—” I wanted to finish that sentence with everything that’s happened since meeting James, but I couldn’t summon the words.
“By the time your mother was your age, she’d already started having problems. You haven’t. You two are not the same person.”
I twisted my fingers around my glass, and when that wasn’t enough to stop the rising pressure, I tore at the skin around my nail beds. “We may not be the same person, but mental illness is hereditary. Her problems started at about my age.” The anxiety was choking. “I’m twenty-two, and it’s…”
Gracie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter how old you are.” Her hands clasped my forearms. “You aren’t her.”
There was a moment of silence where Gracie attempted to drive the weight of her words home with her eyes. She believed I’d never turn into what my mother had become, but she didn’t know it had already begun. Her determination was fierce, and I couldn’t bring myself to spoil it.
Instead, I broke her steady gaze and nodded in agreement. Gracie smiled.
“You should come with us,” she said. “It’ll get your mind off everything.”
I dropped back against the couch. “Where and who?” I asked.
“To the movies with me and Xander. Come. It’ll be fun.”
“And be the third wheel? No, thanks.” I put my glass on the coffee table next to the bottle. “Besides, I’ve got studying to catch up on.”
A knock sounded at the door. “You know you wouldn’t be the third wheel. Xander and I are just—”
“Friends,” I finished. And then with a smile, I said, “Maybe if you keep saying it, you’ll actually convince me.”
She rolled her eyes and opened the door. “Text me if you need me,” she said, and Xander waved before they left. The door closed, and I was alone. I opened my textbook, but after reading the same passage four times, I slammed the book shut. Studying was a lost cause when I couldn’t get thoughts of James out of my head.
Grabbing my coat and keys, I jogged down the stairs. As I approached my car, dread filled my belly.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said as I rounded the car. The front right wheel was completely flat, and protruding from the top was a thick nail. I kicked the tire in frustration and released a groan fit for a toddler.
“I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that won’t fix it.”
Mack, my new neighbor, stood at the rear of my car. His hands were loose on his hips and his breathing was labored. Sweat dripped from his temples, even though the temperature was cool.
“Ha-ha,” I said without humor. “Why don’t you go finish your run. I’ve got this under control.”
“Lucky for you, I just finished. I can help you if you want.” He pointed to the tire.
“Thanks, but I can do it.” I popped the trunk and lifted the false bottom to reveal my jack and spare tire.
Mack raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Really? I’d love to see that.”
“Shut up.” I laughed. “I’ve had a really bad week, and this sucks. I don’t need you back there staring at my ass while I’m bent over a tire.”
“Now, I would never take advantage of a situation just to stare at your ass. Give me a little credit.” He grinned.
I smiled and rolled my eyes as I put the jack under the car. When I looked back, Mack leaned dramatically to his right to get a better vantage point before chuckling and standing upright.
“I’m kidding,” he said, lifting his hands in innocence.
I put the wrench on one of the lug nuts and tried to loosen it, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Have I ever told you how good I am at changing tires?” he asked.
I glared at him, feigning annoyance, before I put my foot on the wrench and pushed down until it moved.
“This is going to take forever,” Mack grumbled with obvious humor. “Come on.” He grasped the wrench and shooed me with his hand.
“I can do that, you know,” I said in my defense.
“I know, but I can do it faster.” He smiled with arrogance, and I turned away, shaking my head.
He made easy work of the lug nuts and had the jack raised before I could even begin a polite conversation. “Do you do this often?” I asked.
“Do what often?” He pulled off my tire and yanked the spare from the trunk.
“Go around helping neighbors. Saving the day and all that?”
He pushed the spare into place and turned to me with a smile. “Is that what I’m doing?”
“You know what I mean.”
He chuckled. The sound was easy and light, like he was used to laughing. “Well, sort of. I work in security.”
“Like a mall cop?”
His grin was somewhat lopsided. “Not quite. It’s a bit less glamorous—no fancy golf cart—but it is somewhat more dangerous.” He looked at me with exaggerated superiority.
“Do you get a badge?”
He smiled. “Well, it was the least they could do.”
He tightened the lug nuts and lowered the jack. What would have taken me a half hour to fix took Mack ten minutes. I picked up the tire wrench as a sharp burst of lightning lit the sky.
“Storm’s coming,” Mack said. He lifted the flat into my trunk and held out his hand for the tools. “You should get inside.”
Thunder cracked and rang hard in my ears. I dropped the tire wrench, and as the sky lit up once more, the metal clattered to the ground at my feet.
“Abby?” Mack asked, but I was somewhere else—standing in a different moonlight, hearing a different kind of crack in the air.
Gunshots.
The sound reverberated inside my bones, ricocheting from one rib to the next, but instead of losing speed, it moved faster, vibrated more intensely, and took my breath in less than a second. The blood drained from my face, and a thin sheen of perspiration coated my skin. I swallowed and tasted smoke, acrid in the back of my throat.
“Mack, I think I’m going to faint,” I said before the bottom dropped out, and I was back inside that hole.
“Remember,” James mouthed before he was jerked from my sight. I stood up from the muddied ground but couldn’t see where he’d gone.
“I’m only going to ask you one more time,” said a voice. “Where is it?”
James moaned something I didn’t understand.
“Kill him,” was the harsh reply.
Something dark and ominous twisted in my stomach. Its black tendrils curled through my veins and spiked a level of fear I hadn’t previously known. He’d made me promise I would stay quiet no matter what, but he couldn’t expect me to keep that kind of promise if it meant letting him die.
A gun fired before I could scream. The sound split the air so loudly I slammed my hands against my ears and ducked into a squat. A deafening silence followed, and my breath escaped my throat in shivering gasps. James was dead. I could feel it. My hands covered my mouth, and I fell onto the wet ground.
“Check the alley,” he said. “The girl’s got to be here somewhere.”
Boots shuffled above me, and when a shadow crossed my hiding place, I pushed myself farther against the muddy wall. Blood rushed in my ears, and my heart ticked a wild rhythm so loud there was no way those men wouldn’t hear it beating. “Is she there?” the voice asked.
The shadow didn’t sway, and I feared I was about to be pulled from my hiding place and handed the same fate James had endured. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I bit down on my lip to keep quiet.
“She’s not here,” the other answered as he stepped away and rustled through the garbage above me. Something large landed on top of the grate and covered most of the opening. I was plunged into darkness with only a thin sliver of moonlight peeping through the crack.
“She’s out there somewhere, and she has my property. Check the police station first, talk to Jimmy. If she goes in, I want to know. Then find the girl and kill her.”
“I’ll find her,” he answered. “And I promise she’ll disappear.” It was only after the footsteps faded that I gave voice to the tears I’d held inside.
“I gotcha,” Mack said in a soft voice.
His hands were wrapped around my upper arms, steadying me on my feet. I blew out a heavy breath and moved to sit on the curb. Cold wind tossed my hair with the impending storm, but it had very little to do with the shivers that ran the length of my spine. My heart hurt with a broken kind of ache that hollowed my center and left me empty. The last time I’d been left so vacant was the night I’d found out my mother had died.
Mack sat beside me and rested his elbows on his knees. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what happened.”
But I did know. James was dead, and even though I knew it wasn’t real, it felt real, and a part of me needed to know he was okay—to know he was alive.
“Was I out long?” I asked.
Mack shrugged. “I don’t think you ever were. You just kind of went limp, but you came right back. Nothing to worry about.”
Even though his voice was reassuring and light, he looked at me with concern. “Thanks,” I said. I glanced at my tire. “For saving the day, again.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mack asked as I stood on shaking legs.
“I’m just going to go back inside, if that’s okay.”
Mack didn’t immediately respond, and instead watched a black sedan as it drove passed. “I think that’s probably best.”
We walked together toward our apartment building, and as we ascended the stairs, Mack’s footfalls fell into sync with mine.
“I’ll see you around,” he said when we reached the landing, and I nodded my response before we turned to our respective apartments. My hands were shaking, and I fumbled with my keys in a way that made opening the door impossible.
“Here,” he said, coming up behind me. “Let me get that.” Gentle fingers took the keys from my hand and had my door opened in seconds. He held it wide and waited for me to pass before taking a single step inside. “Look, I know it’s none of my business, but do you want me to call someone to be with you?”
James. I wanted him here now. “Of course not. I told you I’m fine.”
As if to highlight my obvious lie, the rain let loose, and thunder pounded the sky in loud waves that shook the walls. After the third strike, the lights inside my apartment flickered and went out.
“Perfect,” I said as we were thrust into darkness. “I don’t think this day could get any worse.”
“Got any matches?” he asked.
I pointed to the kitchen, but it was useless in the dark. “Pantry. Bottom shelf.”
By the light of his cell phone, Mack moved through the kitchen. A minute later he was back and lit the candle on the coffee table. Gathering my notes into a neat stack, I sat on the sofa and rubbed my chest as if the act would soothe the hurt that split my heart.
“I feel bad leaving you here like this.” Mack ran his hand along his jaw and looked between me and the door. “Do you want me to stay? At least until your roommate gets home?”
I had two options. I could sit here alone with my thoughts for company, or I could sit here with Mack.
“That’d be nice,” I said. “I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“It’s no problem.” Lightning lit the room in several successive strikes. “It’s really coming down,” he said as he moved to the window at my left. Pulling back the curtain, he stared out into the darkened parking lot.
“So how’d you end up a mall cop?”
He shook his head and dropped the curtain. A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I told you, my job is important and quite dangerous. I’m no mall cop.”
“You said dangerous, but not important.”
A huff of a laugh escaped his lips before he took the far edge of the sofa. “I was recruited, actually. Four years before that, I was in the Army.”
“So, you’re what? Twenty-seven?”
“Close, twenty-six.”
Mack smiled just as Gracie and Xander came barreling through the door. They were soaked.
“Abby?” Gracie called into the darkness. She tried the switch on the wall and turned toward the living room.
“In here,” I said.
“There was a massive wreck blocking our exit, so rather than go to the movie, we decided to rent. But listen, Xander talked to—”
She came into the room, but stopped short when she saw Mack, her head tilting to the side in a question.
“Gracie, have you met Mack? He’s the one that moved into—”
“Darren’s place. Sure.” She gave him a small wave before turning back to me. “I’m sorry, I thought you were alone.”
“Oh no. It’s not like that,” Mack said.
“I had a flat, then the power went out—” I stopped, seeing Gracie rub her lips together and frown. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
Just then, James walked through the door. He stood stock still in the entry, dripping wet, while a pool of water formed at his feet.
My chest constricted, and suddenly, there wasn’t enough air in the room to breathe.