As peacefully as I’d lost myself to sleep last night, I jerked awake as violently. I didn’t need to check the location of the sun in the sky, or consult my cell phone, to know what time it was: 7:12 a.m. Too bad I’d forgotten to place a wake up call with my internal clock.

     “Emma,” I said, shaking her arm. She hadn’t moved from the shape she’d taken curled around me last night. Her face was a kind of tranquil that was sacrilegious to break, but I also knew missing class was a more unpardonable sin in her eyes. “Emma,” I said again, louder.

     Her eyes snapped open, taking in the scene around us like she didn’t remember how she’d found herself the better side of horizontal, in my arms, wrapped in a blanket.

     “Good morning,” I said, sliding a piece of hair behind her ear. “It’s after seven. We better get moving if we’re going to get you to class by nine.”

     Horror chased away the confusion lining her face. “My first class is at eight!” she yelled, scrambling out of my arms and bolting upright.

     Of course she’d be a member of the one percent of college students who elected to take the earliest class they could take. “It’s going to be okay, Em,” I said, popping up with less zeal. “The world will continue to turn if you’re fifteen minutes late.”

     “Not if I miss a test that starts promptly at eight on the dot,” she snapped, running towards the house like she was an impala being chased by an army of hungry lionesses on the Discovery Channel.

     “Crap,” I muttered. I didn’t need to give her any more reasons to stay her distance from me. “Okay, go get changed and grab something to eat and I’ll meet you at the car,” I yelled across the sand at her, tossing empty wrappers and crushed graham crackers into the paper sack.

     “No time,” she yelled. “Meet me at the car now!” She paused in the doorway, sending a warning look at me. “Or else I’m stealing it.”

     I didn’t need any more encouragement. Leaving the remains of s’mores and a just missed kiss behind, I sprinted through the sand after her.

     She was fastening her belt by the time I’d locked up and snagged a couple of breakfast bars from the cupboard. “It isn’t hot, nor particularly delicious, but it’s something,” I said, jumping in and handing her a bar.

     She grabbed it and nodded her thanks. “Drive fast.”

     Sliding my aviators into position, I slammed the Mustang in reverse and grinned. “You’ve got the right man for the job.”

     Bracing one hand on the dashboard and the other on the armrest, she said, “I hope so.”

     Leaving two streaks in the driveway, I was already at seventy by the time I rounded the corner a block down. Emma’s hands didn’t move from their location, like she expected fingertips gripping vinyl surfaces would be her saving grace if we were in a head-on at one hundred and some change.

     Once we were on the freeway, I pushed the Mustang to its upper limits and, once the cars moving in the same direction as us were streaking like the cars going the opposite direction, I knew we’d make good time.

     When we screeched onto the campus, she checked her cell for the three thousandth time and let out a relieved sigh.

     “Drop me off at my dorm. I’ve got to grab my bag and throw on a fresh pair of clothes that don’t reek of campfire and men’s deodorant,” she said, sniffing at the shoulder she’d had tucked into my fresh, not-too-shabby smelling armpit.

     “You got it,” I said, taking a hard right, so hard my tail-end drifted behind us, cutting an ugly bald spot through a patch of pristine Stanford grass. Hopefully my family’s alumni status and giving over the years had accumulated enough influence to overlook one grass terrorization.

     “Thanks for getting me here so fast,” she said, a hair clip between her lips as she tore through her hair with her fingers. “And thanks for not killing me.”

     “Speed is my priority,” I said in an authoritative voice. “Preservation of life is an added bonus.” I rolled to a stop at the front curb of her dorm hall, already feeling the pain of separation.

     Fighting her hair into the clip, she grabbed her purse from the back, pausing as she grabbed the handle.

     “And thanks for everything else,” she whispered, looking everywhere but at me. Throwing the door open, the morning air careened into the car, taking on a chill that had everything to do with her leaving me. I couldn’t let her out of my sight without telling her everything I’d been keeping from her. Everything I should have told her last night before she was in a rush to get to an exam in fifteen minutes.

     My timing, as always, was impeccable.

     I grabbed her hand at the last minute, pulling her back down. She looked over at me like I was mad. “What are we doing, Em?”

     “Well, I am going to class and you are probably going to go pass out on the quad for a couple hours until you commence your inventive forms of cat calling,” she said, smirking at me as she made another go for the exit.

     I held her hand in mine, not because I wanted to, but because I absolutely, positively could not let her go.

     “What are we doing?” I repeated, looking at her with the anguish I could feel manifesting over every piece of me.

     Closing her eyes, she shook her head. “Something we shouldn’t.”

     That cut deeper than last night’s rejected kiss had. “Why not?” I whispered.

     “You know why.”

     “No, actually I don’t,” I replied with a ferocity in my voice reserved for rare situations. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

     Her drifting eyes settled on mine for an instant before they turned away. “My life just doesn’t work with you in it--I don’t work right when you’re in it.” Her jaw was set, but it couldn’t deflect the effect the sheen her eyes had taken on. I was getting close to something if it brought tears to the surface. I couldn’t back off now.

     Knowing this, I shoved ahead, knowing the road immediately in front of us wasn’t a pleasant one.

     “Liar,” I said, gripping the steering wheel so hard I was in danger of ripping it off. “We made a promise that we’d be honest with each other, and you can’t be honest with me if you can’t even be honest with yourself.” That came out harsher than I’d intended, evident as I felt sick to my stomach after saying it and the way Emma recoiled from me like she couldn’t put enough space between us.

     “I’m the liar?” she asked, her eyes forming slits. Her hand pulled away like mine was made of acid. “Tell me, Patrick Hayward—wealthy, supposedly reformed playboy, good at everything, too beautiful to be real—why are you so interested in me?” she asked, yelling every third word.

     “Huh?” she added when I didn’t answer. “A girl from the other side of the tracks who’s going to spend the rest of her life there if she screws up just once. Once!” she said, pointing at me. “So why, champion of honesty, why is someone like you so interested in someone like me?”

     I’d not only never seen Emma so emotional before, I’d never heard her say so much in one breath.

     “What do you mean?” I asked, turning in my seat.

     “Dammit, Patrick!” she shouted, slamming a fist into the dashboard. “The question is so simple even you should be able to get it. Why are you pretending to like me?”

     Three things crippled the speech right out of me. The second curse word I’d heard from her, PG-13 rated as it was, her insult to my intelligence, and her assumption that I was pretending to like her. It didn’t make sense, none of it did. That could have been the reason I was unable to form a word, let alone an intelligent reply.

     “That’s what I thought,” she said, staring at me like she could see right through me. “Hypocrite.” Lunging out of the car, she spun back around and, leaning down, she said, “Leave me alone.”

     “No,” I said, gripping the steering wheel again.

     “Leave. Me. Alone.” And then she slammed the door and ran away like she couldn’t get away from me fast enough.

     I watched her leave, all the way until she disappeared inside the building. My eyes lingered on the spot she’d disappeared.

     “No,” I whispered to no one.

 

    

The first couple hours after that were rough. I’d gone back and forth between chasing after her and professing the way I felt about her in every detail—down to the way I lost my sense of balance when she tilted her head back and laughed—to getting the hell away from here and forgetting I’d ever met Emma Scarlett.

     I ended up hanging in my car past lunch time, once I settled on finding the middle ground between running away or becoming a certified stalker. On my way to Psych, I still hadn’t decided on the best way to smooth things over.

     I considered ignoring her, leaving her alone as she yelled at me to—pretend she didn’t exist—but I was wise in the ways of women and I knew pretending you don’t exist was the final straw that would break the back of the relationship. It doesn’t matter how pissed they are with you, never unleash a full scale ignore attack on a woman you want to make up with—classic rookie mistake.

     What I wanted to do when I walked in that class was stand up and ask the professor to put a clamp on it for a few minutes while I professed to an auditorium full of students how bad I had it for Emma and how I was a ruined man if she didn’t feel the same way. Yeah, something along those lines . . .

     I knew that, while I was one for theatrics, Emma wasn’t. She would be mortified if I unleashed a can of I’m smitten in front of her classmates. Then I’d be even deeper into the quick sand I was already smothering in.

     During my last strides down the hall towards Psych, I finally settled on a plan of attack.

     I’d just go with the flow. I’d do what felt right at the time and hope my gut, that had rarely steered me wrong before, wouldn’t let me down when it really counted. Not the most elaborate plan, I knew, but I figured it was better than getting naked, lighting myself on fire, and screaming I love you, Emma Scarlett down the hallway.

     I pulled open the auditorium door a few minutes past the hour, trying to outsmart the sneaky fox that I hoped was still icing his face back at prat hall. However I was going to proceed with Emma, I knew it would go smoother if her idiot boyfriend wasn’t around.

     I grunted as soon as I stepped inside, of course he wouldn’t be gone on the day I really needed him to be gone. And of course he’d be sitting right beside her in their favorite seats in the back row. He glanced back as the door whined closed and I would have guessed he hadn’t noticed me, until he dropped his arm around Emma’s shoulders. A tad purposeful in his possession, but it was going to take a helluva a lot more to run me off.

     Ty’s fingers barely had time to curl into her skin until she wagged her shoulders, shoving his arm away with her hand when that didn’t work. She aimed a glare at him I thought was strictly reserved for Patrick Hayward.

     Whether this was a simple lover’s quarrel or the beginning of the end, I didn’t know, but I did know you didn’t waste a crack—no matter how temporary—in a relationship you were trying to end. I didn’t have time to reconcile how much of a monster that made me seem or justify I didn’t only want them to break up because it was best for me, but because it was best for Emma, before I marched down that last aisle and slid into the open seat on the other side of her.

     I leaned in to her. “Can you forgive me for being an idiot?” I whispered, glancing between her and Ty, waiting for him to realize I’d slipped into the seat next to the woman he was all territorial over. “Again?”

     My attempts at playing it light and making a puppy dog face went over as well as I hoped it wouldn’t. Her glare turned from Ty to me, and I don’t think I was mistaken when those eyelids seemed to drop further.

     I leaned away a bit, and that’s when the worst bodyguard in the history of them noticed me.

     “Pick another seat, dickweed,” he growled, reaching behind Emma and shoving my shoulder.

     I blew a burst of air out my mouth. “Wow, a name I haven’t been called yet. You must have been hard at work on that one all weekend. That must describe while you’re looking especially ugly today.” Grinning my provocation, I continued, “By the way, double black eyes is a great look for you.”

     He shoved my shoulder again, harder. “You’re about to have a pair to match if you don’t move away from my girlfriend.”

     I squished my face into a puh-lease expression. “From the looks of it, your girlfriend might be catching on to the well-known fact that her boyfriend is a monkey’s uncle.”

     I was too focused on Ty, too set on taking out everything raging inside of me, or else I would have noticed Emma’s shoulders tensing to the point of snapping, her face flashing red with her own emotions firing inside. That would have been the wise way to expend my energy, on calming her instead of enraging Ty, but at this point in my male show of dominance, I wasn’t being wise.

     “Emma’s not going anywhere,” he said, his mouth twisting up. “And the next time you lure her to your place, for any duration of time, you’re a dead man.”

     It was a casual expression any male who’d hit puberty had thrown around, but something intentional in Ty’s words made me believe he wasn’t bluffing. Unfortunately for him, if he came at me with a death sentence, I was invincible to most things manmade, and I wasn’t a man who bluffed when handing out death threats. I’d killed men, many of them, and while it wasn’t a badge of honor I wore on my chest, it wasn’t something I was ashamed about either. I’d never killed a man who had ceased deserving life, and Ty was getting dangerously close to winding up on that list.

     “If she comes back, I’ll be all open doors. And arms,” I said, for her, not him.

     However, she didn’t look like she was hearing anything but a couple of imbeciles throwing insults around, above, and between her.

     “She won’t,” Ty said, his jaw muscles about to pop through his skin.

     I shrugged. “She might.” It was working—my blasé demeanor was pissing him off hardcore. I was hoping he was two more retorts away from exploding out of the room in a furious puff of smoke.

     “She. Won’t.”

     “She probably will,” I replied, cracking my neck from side to side.

     “She—”

     I was sick of hearing this repeated. “She most definitely will,” I said, fixing my eyes on him. “Begging me to let her in. Begging,” I repeated slowly.

     The dormant volcano simmering between us chose that time to explode. Leaping to a stand, she stared hard at him, then at me. Damn, her eyes were taking on that glassy sheen again.

     “I am not some prize either of you can claim,” she shouted, all the way to the rafters and down to where a bored professor was laser pointing at something on the screen.

     Every last Monday-afternoon-groggy head snapped to attention, followed by bodies twisting in their seats to stare at Emma.

     I hadn’t seen that one coming. A full-fledged outburst in a silent classroom of a hundred? Emma seemed more the grin and bear it type.

     Pushing past Ty, she ran out of the room, hair flying behind her and tears spilling before her.

     “Happy?” Ty growled, towering over me.

     “Far from it,” I answered.

     One more shove to my shoulder and Ty turned and followed after her.

     When the door slammed closed the second time, Professor Camp cleared his throat. “My advanced degrees, unparalleled experience in the field, and all around mastery of all things of a psychological matter would lead me to the intricate, official diagnosis that she suffers from,” he paused, lowering his glasses, “boy issues.” Looking my way, he said, “Mr. Hayward, I’m guessing you play a large part in that. Be on your way,” he said, waving at the door.

     I didn’t need permission, but that’s what got me out of my seat.

     “Here’s a question for you eager young minds to gnaw on,” he continued as I jogged down the aisle. “Why are you here learning about life when you could be out living life?” You could almost hear a few brains shattering.

     The door was closing behind me as Camp barreled on with his education bashing spiel. “And here’s something else—sitting in class is a waste of your time, mind, and—”

     The door slammed shut before I could hear the continued pearls in this necklace of wisdom. I jogged down the hallway, listening for voices. I didn’t go far before I heard the ones I was listening for, and they weren’t being spoken in a quiet, or friendly, tone.

     Slamming the outside doors open, I saw Ty’s back, his arms and voice flying into the wind. I couldn’t see her thanks to the gorilla exhibiting every mannerism of an actual one blocking her, but I knew she was there.

     “You were nothing when we hooked up,” he shouted as another arm burst into the air. “You were on a one way train to becoming a future man sewer before I made the biggest mistake of my life and made you my girlfriend.”

     I launched into a sprint across the lawn, hardly able to wait tackling the SOB.

     “I guess I always knew you’d wind up a whore like your mom. I just didn’t see the evidence until this past weekend.”

     I would have snapped his back in half had I not pulled back two strides before I rocketed into him. Emma’s scream was the only thing I heard as Ty and I toppled over each other until the momentum from the impact crested.

     I landed on top, the red pulsing in me, ready to repay every foul word he’d said to Emma with the business side of my fist.

     A pair of hands wound around my arm an inch before fist met flesh. “Patrick—no!” she said, her voice shaking as she wrestled me off of Ty.

     The rage died, her touch freeing it. When she had me upright and a body length away from the human sized lawn gnome decorating the grass, she pressed her hand to my chest, looking at me hard.

     “You promised,” she said. The promise I wished I wouldn’t have made. “You promised,” she repeated, like she knew my anger was playing devil’s advocate with my rational mind.

     “I know.” The last remains of fury released itself in a tremble. “I know,” I said again.

     “Keep it then,” she said softly.

     What choice did I have when she looked at me like that? “I will.”

     “She sure got you whipped fast,” Ty said, upright and grinning his malevolence at us. “I’d say a little something more than studying and sun-tanning occurred this weekend.” Looking at Emma, his grin twisted higher. “What do you have to say about that, Emma? Were you being your typical whorish self with lover boy?”

     Like she was already expecting it, Emma caught my arm as I whipped around to finish delivering my message. “Stop it, Patrick!” she shouted, looking desperate.

     “Why are you defending him?” I spun on her, trying to see what it was she saw in this loser. I saw nothing but a face filled with dread and secrets. “I’ve never heard one kind word come out of his mouth when he talks to you, so why are you defending who should be your worst enemy to someone who wants to be your best friend?”

     “It’s because she knows the only way she can escape her shithole of a life is to glom onto the coat tails of any man who’s dumb enough to not recognize her for the gutter whore she is.”

     “You really are a piece of shit, you know that?” I said, seething. Emma’s firm hand holding my arm was the only thing keeping me from charging him again.

     “What does that say about Emma then? Since she can’t get enough of this ‘piece of shit’?” Ty said, looking his girlfriend up and down. “I think that makes her a swarming, shit eating house fly. That sound about right?”

     “Shut up!” I screamed, feeling the veins bulging in my neck. I’d seen enough of hate in my life to recognize it, and I hated him for talking about her like this. I’d known arch nemeses who’d had more respect for one another than to speak of the other the way Ty was speaking of the woman he supposedly loved.

     We were drawing a crowd. Fights happened on Stanford’s campus about as often as a middle class student was admitted. They were going to get quite a show if Ty didn’t shut his mouth soon.

     “Why don’t you come over here and make me?” Ty challenged, crossing his arms. “Oh, that’s right. You made my girlfriend a promise that you wouldn’t take a swing at me again, and you’re actually pussy-whipped enough to honor that.”

     Emma’s face had gone from snow white to cherry red. It was one thing for him to humiliate her in front of me, but now he was doing it in front of a generous portion of her classmates. She was squirming from her discomfort. I couldn’t take seeing her like this, and since I couldn’t beat the snot out of him to shut him up, I could think of one other way to get him to shut his trap.    

     “I might not be able to hit you to shut you up, but I’m fairly certain if you’re beating the crap out of me, you won’t be able to manage anything more than a grunt.”

     “Patrick,” Emma whispered, shaking her head, pulling me away from Ty instead of holding me back from him.

     “Are you serious?” Ty asked, looking like he was waiting to double check the numbers before celebrating his lottery win.

     “Dead,” I said, squaring myself in front of him, my body subconsciously bracing itself for a beating. “I’ll give you two minutes to kick my ass from here to next Monday because I’d rather feel your pussy punch than hear your filthy lies. But here’s the thing.” I stared at the piece of garbage with unblinking focus—I wanted him to know I wasn’t scared of him and I was serious as a tumor with my warning. “If you ever say another nasty thing about Emma again, whether I hear it or not, all promises are off, and I will relish beating you until you’re reduced to crapping into a diaper and sipping steak from a straw the rest of your life. I have no problem going back to jail, son.”

     So I hadn’t been to jail before, but I meant it when I said I’d have no problem paying the price to beat him within an inch of death. In fact, I couldn’t think of a better way to end up in prison.

     The crowd had grown again, almost exponentially. That probably had a lot to do with text messaging and “send all.”

     “Two minutes, huh?” Ty said, sliding out of his coat and tossing it to the side. “And you think by keeping your word and not hitting me while I kick your ass, that will make me the bad guy and Emma will run into your broken in several locations arms?”

     I slid off my watch and handed it to Emma. She was looking at me like I was the next in line to be hanged. “If Emma ever chooses me over you one day, it will be of my own merit. Not due to your lack of it.”

     Ty cracked his knuckles, rolling his neck around. “What are the rules?”

     Idiot, since when did fights for honor involve rules? We weren’t playing a game of chess.

     “No rules.”

     “No.” Emma’s voice was so tight it was a note from breaking. “Don’t be stupid. Just walk away. I can handle him.”

     I unzipped my motorcycle jacket and handed that to her next, just to give her something to wring her restless hands into. “I’ve never been one to walk away, Em, and that’s something I’m not about to change now.”

     “Back away, Emma,” Ty said, hopping in place to spike his adrenaline. “Might want to say goodbye to pretty boy’s face. There’s not going to be much left of it once I’m done.”

     “This is a one time deal, dickhead,” I said, stepping away from Emma since she wouldn’t step away from me. “Do your worst.”

     “That’s the only way I work,” Ty answered, pulling something out of his back pocket. The metal caught the sun as he slid the brass knuckles into place.

     If my opinion of Ty Steel could have gotten any smaller, it would have. Who carried a set of brass knuckles around in their back pocket? Just think of the most despicable person you’ve had the misfortune of meeting and that pretty much describes him. “No rules right?” Ty said with a wicked grin.

     Emma gasped. “What the hell, Ty?” Her voice shook across the grass at him.

     Holding up the index finger of his knuckled hand, he reached his other hand behind him, revealing another set. Sliding this set into position, he held his fists in front of him, sliding them together so I could read the encryption etched into them: Don’t fear the reaper, fear me.

     A man who was taller than me by a couple inches, heavier than me by a solid fifty pounds, brass knuckled to the teeth, set on ending me because I was after his girl, about to enter a fight with me where I wasn’t allowed to throw a single punch . . . I should have been pissing my pants right about now.

     So, of course, I laughed. “Done stalling, big boy?” I called out, making sure the crowd heard me. “Quit playing with your toys and throw down the pain already.”

     “I won’t hold you to your promise anymore,” Emma said, bracing herself in front of me as I began loping towards Ty. “This is not a fair fight. Hit him, kick him, I don’t care, do what you have to to defend yourself. Okay?”

     “Stay out of this, Emma,” Ty warned, taking an indirect route at me like he didn’t believe that I wasn’t going to fight back.

     “Yeah,” I said, looking at her. Tears were streaking her face, but I couldn’t retract the offer now. Had I known she’d be crying more now than she had when Ty had been saying those terrible things to her, I might not have made this deal with Ty, but that was hindsight. “Stay out of this, Em.” Gripping her shoulders, I guided her into the crowd, handing her over to a girl I recognized who lived on the same floor as her and Julia.

     “I know it’s hard for you, but stop being an idiot,” she pleaded when I turned to face a two minute beating. “The last guy he used those things on was unconscious by the second punch.”

     I glanced back at her and winked. “Good thing I’m not the last guy.”

     I was just looking back around when a cool crack crushed into my jaw. The crowd gasped—Emma screamed.

     So, of course, I laughed—again.

     I should have been expecting the sucker punch from the master of all things suck. It was an oversight I wouldn’t make again.

     “I told you to punch me, not to give me a sweet little kiss on the cheek,” I said, pretending to smear the kiss away.

     His next hit was fast and loaded with a potent amount of power. Not to mention the brass knuckles had a way of driving a punch so deep you could feel it radiate through the ends of every nerve.

     Spinning around to the crowd, I lifted my arms to the sky. “Did someone turn a fan on in here?”

     The next was an upper cut that felt like it would have shattered my jaw had I not been so . . .  invincible.

     “Is there a butterfly migration going on? I keep feeling the gentle brush of velvety wings on my face.”

     A few members of the crowd laughed at my weak attempts at humor, but most stared like they were about to witness an execution. Emma was now being held back by two of her brothers who’d appeared with the rest of Stanford. That was a relief because I knew they wouldn’t let her get anywhere near to the cluster f-bomb taking place in the arena created by gawking bodies.

     By the fifth hit, I wasn’t making witty comments anymore. And by the eighth, I wasn’t laughing either. I hadn’t been in more than a handful of brawls with beings of a fragile nature, but when I had, the random hit I’d let past my defenses to experience what it felt like had felt like nothing. Like someone tapping at me to get my attention, not to cause me physical damage. Then again, I’d never experienced the wrath of a man who was likely related to the devil, wielding a convincing pair of brass knuckles.

     Spitting out the metallic taste swirling in my mouth, I realized this was one of those experiences I didn’t want to have again. Once was enough. I hadn’t felt this Mortal since the day I’d died with the rest of my family.

     A quick jab, followed by a hook, rocked me back on my heels, but I recovered, assuming my spot in the center of the ring. I’d made myself a sitting duck, refusing to duck, not about to block him, and keeping my promise to not strike back. I’d promised the man two minutes to dole out a free for all beating and he wasn’t going to let a second pass wasted.

     I kept myself angled towards Emma because I knew I’d find the strength in her I needed when every fiber of my survival instincts begged to be set free.

     She’d called the cops after the first hit. I’d heard her brothers advising her not to, and I’d heard her succinct, one word answer, but we both knew Palo Alto’s finest wouldn’t be here before the two minutes was done.

     She never stopped fighting against her brothers. I don’t know what she thought she’d do once she did break free, but I hoped she was seeing a piece of the woman I saw when I looked at her. She was a scrapper, courageous to the core, yet she didn’t see it.

     As Ty completed making a punching bag of my head, she threw herself hard against her brothers, getting the closest she had to busting loose.

     “Just a walk in the park, Em,” I called over at her, spitting the bitter taste from my mouth again. This time, there was blood. I hadn’t bled real, red blood since 1806. Russo-Persian War. Long Story.

     “A walk in the park,” I repeated, bracing myself as Ty threw his fist into my stomach.

     I curled over, wondering if time had decided to slow to a crawl so it could have a good laugh at Patrick Hayward getting his butt handed to him. Vulnerable, Ty charged into me, hoisting me into the air with his shoulder. And then I was flying, but not in the cool, trippy way I did in my dreams. In the this-is-going-to-hurt-like-hell kind of way.

     I skidded across the sidewalk face first. The pissant had thrown me onto concrete. Face first. I wanted a piece of him so badly I had to wind my hands behind my back and lace them together so I wouldn’t be tempted. At my current level of anger and agony, I’d kill him with one strike.

     Ty’s feet came into view, although my eyes were glazed and no longer able to open all the way. They were swelling closed. Ty seemed to have picked an excellent day to throw on a pair of steel toed boots, at least that’s what I had a good internal laugh about before they started taking turns bashing me in the face.

     I hadn’t felt pain like that ever. Not even when I’d been shot close range in the stomach my last day of Mortality. Immortals experienced pain on a superficial level, if ever, but I was feeling it like it was cutting me open and spilling my insides out in the process. I’d never felt so human. Couldn’t have picked a worse day to feel Mortal.

     I kept my hands locked behind me, not about to act the part of a coward and protect myself when the seconds were ticking to an end. I wouldn’t go down as someone who ran out of courage at the last minute. I didn’t want that to be my legacy.

     Black dots were just beginning to cloak my vision when I heard a chorus of shouts. “Time!” most yelled. “Your two minutes are up, Ty!” some called. “Get him the hell off of him before he kills him!” a couple called.

     “Patrick!” one voice screamed—the only voice that mattered.

     Releasing their sister, Austin and Tex charged Ty, each one grabbing a shoulder and pulling him away from me, but he still managed to get a few last kicks in.

     “Stay down, punk” he sneered, fighting against the Scarlett brothers’ holds.

     Two minutes was up, I’d taken it like a man, keeping my promise and honoring my deal, and I was hurting hard core. My body felt like it’d just gone through an assembly line of heavy weights throwing their top-notch, grade A TKO punches. I could have curled up and gritted my teeth until my body did the Immortal thing and recovered itself like a new shiny penny, but because he’d told me to stay down, I did the opposite.

     Trying to right myself with as little hobbling as my busted body could, I had to spit out the warm fluid trickling in my mouth before I could reply. More red, lots more red.

     “That’s it? Just a wham, bam, thank you ma’am and you’re gone?” My body was broken, but my voice carried just fine. “No cuddling after or anything?”

     The crowd’s eyes did a unified amplification, like if they hadn’t been before, they were now looking at a dead man. The humor in that was that I’d been a dead man before their great great grandparents had been born.

     Ty fought harder to free himself, but the only thing more hulking on campus than him was the Scarlett brothers. He’d have better luck freeing himself from Alcatraz. I didn’t know if he was incapable of responding because his quivering red face was taking up all his energy or if he didn’t have a comeback worthy enough to speak, but I was relieved I’d managed to shut him up.

     He wouldn’t look at Emma as he was dragged out of the circle, and I realized I’d never heard him disrespect her around her brothers. He must know all gloves came off if he talked that way to their sister. My estimation of the Scarlett boys increased two-fold.

     “Thanks again for the rub down,” I yelled over the diminishing crowd to Ty, because I never knew when to quit. “You really worked all my kinks out. Same time, next week?”

     I heard another growl and surge of effort, but Ty didn’t bust through the crowd to take another swing at me. Too bad, because one solid round house to the mouth would have been one of the few things to make me feel better.

     Well, that, and one set of arms wrapping around me like she was trying to put me back together. God, I could have melted into a puddle of slush from those arms.

     “Why did you do that?” she cried into my chest. “What the heck were you thinking?”

     I dropped my stiff arms around her, trying not to wince. “I thought you would have noticed by now I don’t think too often.” My humor was still intact—that was a sure sign I was going to make it. However, I did not want to see my mutilated face before the magic fairy dust of Immortality had done its work and repaired me back to good as new. I’d never be the same if I did.

     Sniffling, she looked at me. “That’s not true,” she said, her hand skimming over my face like she was trying to erase the swollen, bloody, bruised, gashed, meatball of flesh. “You’re the most thoughtful person I’ve ever known. I know you did that because you thought it through, not because it was an impulsive, testosterone fueled decision. And I’d thank you, but I can’t be thankful for something that did this to you.”

     Tears were skiing down her face unchecked, but her voice gave no sign of them. If we were in a dark room, I wouldn’t have guessed she was crying the tears of a new widow. She wouldn’t give herself more than one release of sadness, her strength ran that deep.

     “You don’t have to be thankful, Em,” I said, seeing two of her every other heartbeat. Trippy. “I’m thankful enough for the both of us that your monster of a boyfriend shut up and left. But I meant what I said,”—I looked at her as hard as a pair of swelling shut eyes could—“if that bastard says so much as he doesn’t like the color of your shirt and I hear about it, there’s not going to be a time limit and I’m not holding back. You understand?”

     She nodded, her face forming around a different kind of sadness. The kind that ran deep and couldn’t be fixed. “I know, Patrick. I know,” she said, her voice as sad as her face. “That’s why I meant what I said earlier.”

     My blood battered brows rose in confusion; she’d said a lot earlier.

     “You need to leave me alone. Alone, alone. I can’t have you and Ty in my life at the same time. One, or both of you, is going to wind up dead.” She paused, swallowing a rock in her throat. “Just forget about me, Patrick. It won’t be hard to do. I promise.”

     “Emma, what the hell?” I felt numb from the hit I’d just taken to my heart.

     “The ambulance will be here soon,” she said, pressing a lingering kiss into my cheek. It was so rich in emotion, history, and goodbyes it choked the words right out of me. The first time I’d felt her lips on my skin was the last time I’d see her again if I did what she was asking and left her alone and forgot all about her.

     I might have cried my first tear in a long time just then. So much warm fluid was flowing from every surface inch of my face I couldn’t be sure, but that familiar burning feeling in my eyes was there. And everything inside me certainly felt like crying.

     “Goodbye, Patrick,” she whispered beside my ear, before winding out of our embrace and pushing herself through the couldn’t-get-enough-of-this-train-wreck spectators, running in the opposite direction. I’d seen too much of Emma’s fleeing back today.

     The pain surged in a fresh wave with the healing balm of her touch now removed. I would have collapsed to the ground and let the pain, pity, and regret eat me away until I was swallowed by the ground, but I heard the wail of approaching sirens.

     I didn’t want to explain why their needles couldn’t puncture my skin or why every wound on my body would be vanished like it’d never existed in a couple hours.

     “Run,” I told myself, feeling like I was going to need to whip myself to leave this spot where Emma had just held me like everything was going to be all right, like everything I’d gone through wasn’t for nothing, like I was going to be all right.

     She took all my hopes when she ran away.

     “Run,” I repeated under my breath, the sirens turning the corner. The crowd was already parting so the men with their boxes could sew up the bloody blob who used to look like a man five minutes ago.

     “Dammit, Patrick Hayward. Run!”

     It took a slow inhalation and my forearm thrust to my chest, but I did. I ran. I ran away from the sirens, away from the crowd, away from my problems, away from everything that had the potential to hurt me.

     Problems, no matter big or small, had a way of running faster than you and could be counted on to be waiting for you, rested and ready to pick up right where they’d left off, by the time you got to wherever you were running. I knew that, I’d learned that lesson a million times over, but it didn’t stop me from trying.