Say It's Forever, page 31
All five of them began to lift.
A small strain of smoke billowed out of the one closest to the lobby.
I ran along the front of the building. My heart seized when I realized where it was coming from.
Salem’s piece of shit car that was still on the riser smoldered, the barest smoke wafting out from the driver’s-side window that had been left down.
Dipping inside the shop, I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall, fighting a war of my own fear, my own regrets.
Felt like the ugliest, dirtiest parts of me had found their way free and were taunting me.
The small fire a jeer that threatened to erupt to an all-out inferno from Salem’s car.
I hit the button to the riser to lower it, and I jerked out the pin on the extinguisher and sprayed the foam over the flames.
It was out as fast as it’d started.
Strain heaved and shock clutched my chest, this crazy-ass billow of relief mixed with the disorder.
Sweat dripped from my forehead, my blood a boil of aggression and adrenaline.
I swallowed it down and looked inside the window of the old car.
The remnants of a charred, oily rag were on the seat.
My gaze whipped around, searching for a reason.
An explanation.
Dread curled and trembled the ground beneath my feet.
The extinguisher slipped from my hands and clattered to the concrete. It rolled under the car while bile throbbed in my throat.
A warning.
A hiss.
Nothing added up.
I moved through the shop, hitting the stop button on the alarm as I passed. The silence roared. A ringing in my ears as I began to search every nook.
Every cranny.
Any possible spot someone could hide.
I came up short, nothing else out of place.
I scrubbed both hands over my face before I dropped them to peer through the empty shop.
My stomach was in knots. Nausea burned through the middle. I swallowed around the ball of razors in my throat.
It had to be an accident.
A slip up.
A misstep.
That rag left in the wrong place.
But what would have sparked it?
“Fuck,” I spat then I inhaled, trying to get my head on straight as I barreled out of the bay and toward the only destination I knew.
To where Salem and Juni were hidden in the cover of the dense thicket of trees.
My heart battered and crashed, and every single muscle in my body bowed in possession.
Salem was there. Her daughter in her arms, hiding her face but still peeking out as I approached.
“It was just a small fire caused by an oily rag. Alarm is super sensitive to protect the shop.”
It was true, but it still felt like bullshit.
Salem knew it, too.
She was shaking. Shaking and shaking.
She spun a circle, her black hair whipping around her shoulders like a darkened, chaotic storm. “No.”
Panic built, and her fear compounded.
“No,” she said again before she darted around me and took off running. With Juni held in her arms, she headed back toward the side stairway.
I kept up behind her. “Salem. Wait. Let me check it out to make sure it’s safe before we go back inside.”
I might as well not have said a thing because my words didn’t penetrate the wall of her panic.
She never put Juni down the entire way up to the loft, her feet banging the stairs and her distress clawing the white bricks.
She burst through the laundry room door, ignoring me as I tried to stop her.
“Salem, please. Calm down. Let’s take a deep breath. A minute to think this through.”
The distress radiating back was her only answer.
Seeping from her pores and burning from her flesh.
“Salem.”
She was already in the guest bedroom, snatching up Juni’s bag, then she blew out and into my bedroom. The only thing she took the time to grab was her purse.
She didn’t look at me as she rushed back out the door and across the loft.
“Salem. Fuck, please. Stop. Look at me.” I fumbled behind her. Trying to break through. To climb over the barriers and find my way to her. To where it was me and this girl who’d changed everything. One who’d rearranged every loyalty.
I didn’t make a dent.
Without slowing, she darted back through the laundry room and into the stairwell, her footfalls frenzied as she careened down the steps.
“Salem…please. Listen to me. I have you. I have you.”
“Please, Jud, don’t.” It was the first thing that came out of her mouth, and she tossed it out without looking back as she banged through the bottom door and out into the deepening night.
She ran for the SUV she’d left parked right outside.
“Salem. Don’t.”
I tried to grab her arm. To hold her. To let her know it was going to be okay.
Shaking me off, she pushed the button on the lock and set Juni into the backseat. Her movements were frantic as she strapped the little girl into place.
She slammed Juni’s door and slipped by me while my heart lodged in my shredded throat.
“I’m sorry,” was all she said as she jerked open the driver’s door, refusing to look at me as she did. She started to climb inside.
I took her by the shoulders and spun her around to face me. “I know you’re scared, but I need you to remember right now what you promised—if you get scared, you run to me. Remember, darlin’. Run to me. I’m right here. Right here.”
She squeezed her eyes closed like she couldn’t look at me when she said it, the words ragged when she forced them out. “I’m sorry, I can’t stay, Jud. I can’t. I need to go before it’s too late.”
Agony whipped through the atmosphere.
My guts screamed. But it was my heart shouting louder.
Taking her by the face, I forced her to look at me. Begging her to see. To hear. “I’m in this with you, Salem. You’re not alone any longer. Don’t you see? I have you, darlin’. I have you.”
Her eyes just pressed tighter, girl closing herself off, regressing back to the place where she couldn’t trust. Where her fear reigned, and her hopes didn’t matter. “You have to let me go, Jud. I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Desperate, the confession I’d been trying to deny to myself came blundering out. “I can’t let you go. I can’t. I love you. I fuckin’ love you, Salem.”
It was true.
So fucking true the verity of it nearly dropped me to my knees.
But I had to remain standing.
Hold up this girl.
Because she choked on the agony, and Salem nearly bent in two, falling apart as she surged forward and pressed her face to my chest and curled those hands in my shirt. Clinging to me as if I were a buoy in the raging, toiling sea, she frantically kissed over my heart. I felt the grief and lost dreams leave her on a sob.
She inhaled, breathed me in, then she pushed her hands against my chest to push me away. “Who said anything about love?”
I staggered back.
Salem swayed. Caught in a torrent of sorrow. Her arm shot out to catch herself on the door before she fell, then she swallowed, built a fortress around herself, and jumped into the driver’s seat.
“I’ll figure out a way to repay you for the car. Both of them.” She was facing forward when she said it, cool and robotic and like she wasn’t tearing me apart. Reaching out, she grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut.
My palms pressed to the window. “Salem. Baby, don’t go. You don’t have to do this.”
Could see her frenzied movements as she fumbled to start the car. I banged at the window. “Salem. Don’t. Don’t run away. Run to me.”
My pleas didn’t penetrate, or maybe they made her fight this harder, the way she refused to look at me as she threw the car in reverse. She peeled out as I flew back and stumbled out of the way.
The SUV jolted forward when she put it in drive, tires squealing as she gunned it on the loose gravel.
Like a fuckin’ fool, I ran behind her. “Salem! Salem! Please.”
Salem.
My entire being writhed.
Writhed in fucking agony because my entire world was fleeing.
Running, the way she did. The way she’d promised she would do.
I was a fool.
I had known it in an instant.
The way this girl’d had me tangled in a beat.
Need.
Possession.
Black. Fuckin’. Magic.
Nothing but pure, utter devastation.
And my sweet enchantress’s spell? It finally brought me to my knees.
THIRTY-ONE
SALEM
Tears streamed down my face, blurring my sight until it was impossible to see. A fog of torment blinded and obscured, while white-hot blades of heartache cut and slayed, slicing through the middle of me.
It left that vacancy gaping wide.
I felt like I was bleeding out.
“Salem!” I could hear Jud shouting, his pull yanking at my spirit and rending me in two. “Don’t do this.”
I squeezed my hands around the steering wheel like it could keep me on the right path. Make me remember who I was and what I had to protect my daughter from.
To keep from giving myself in a way I never should have in the first place.
Salem.
It banged through my mind and shredded my heart.
I love you. I fuckin’ love you.
Tears blurred my eyes and soaked my face.
He wasn’t supposed to. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Juni whimpered from the backseat. Quiet and afraid. “Mommy.”
“I know,” I mumbled. “I know.”
And I hated that I did. Hated what I was putting her through.
But I had no other choice, did I?
Not while the terror continued to rip through my consciousness. A foreboding that warned of what was to come. Of what would always be lurking, ready to consume when I allowed myself to get sloppy.
To get comfortable.
Reckless.
If Carlo had found us? If he was responsible?
That thought had me ramming the accelerator to the floor. The tires peeled out on the loose gravel.
I had to get away. Put a lifetime between us and this place. Become someone else. The way I always did.
You exist.
Through the rearview mirror, I saw the hulking, beast of a man lumbering behind us.
As if he were chasing down something real.
I could feel the reverberation of his footfalls as he chased us across the lot.
I pinched my eyes closed like it could stop me from feeling the impact of who he was.
From hearing the shout of his soul.
Shield my heart from the call that screamed every bit as loud as the sirens that had blared through the building. As loud as the instinct that told me I had to go.
That I could never stay.
That for me, there was no such thing as home.
But my spirit?
It thrashed.
A riot that gripped my insides.
It ravaged the hollow space that could never be filled.
“Go,” I whimpered, to him, to myself, to this feeling that welled up.
But it only grew.
Clouding judgement.
Obliterating reason.
“Please,” I cried to myself, like it could sever the pull. That severity that had been there from the moment Jud had found me in the storm.
The SUV bounced across the gravel drive, the tail end skidding as I erratically whipped around the side of the building to the front parking lot.
Reckless.
I headed across the lot toward the exit, trying to force myself through the sludge of agony. I tried to press harder at the accelerator, but a tremor rocked through my leg and shocked through my body.
Salem.
I could still hear him calling my name.
In the middle of the lot, I rammed on the brakes.
Closed my eyes.
Prayed.
Salem.
His voice curled around my being and wrapped me in comfort.
A sob ripped up my throat. I held tighter to the steering wheel and pressed my forehead to the leather as another cry lacerated through my insides.
Fumbling, I put the SUV in park, and my foot was floundering around to engage the emergency brake, my fingers on the door latch and cracked it open.
I couldn’t feel my feet, but I knew the ground wobbled below me.
Jud was there, sweeping me into his arms a second before I crumbled.
My arms curled desperately around his neck. “I didn’t mean to, Jud. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you.”
It spilled out.
The confession of my soul.
I didn’t mean to, but I did.
I did.
“I know, darlin’. I know,” he murmured at my ear as he held me against his chest.
Massive arms surrounded me.
His heart thundered, a pound, pound, pounding of peace. Of safety. Of saving grace.
He exhaled the heaviest breath into my hair.
He reached inside the car and shut off the engine.
He didn’t let me go, he just moved to Juni’s door, opened it, unbuckled her, and helped her down.
He held me with one arm, his other hand securely wrapped around Juni’s.
“I have you,” was all he said as he started to walk back around the building.
Warmth skated across my skin, sank below, embedded itself in my marrow.
I burrowed my face into his beard. Inhaled his aura. Drew it into my lungs.
Relished the sanctuary of this man.
Citrus and spice. A warm fall night.
A protector.
While every muscle in his body vibrated with the truth of the length he’d be willing to go for us. The ferocity that sped and churned.
A grim, wicked savior.
I clung to him.
Gave.
Trusted.
Loved.
Reckless.
A sob curled up my throat, and I pressed my mouth to his shoulder and released it.
In it was surrender.
Concession.
A yielding to his sacrifice.
“I have you.”
It penetrated, bled into my cells, and became a part of my heartbeat.
“I have you.”
He somehow managed to get the heavy metal door open without setting me down, and he held it so Juni could slip inside. He took her hand again as he carried me upstairs.
His footsteps echoed.
Heavy and firm.
Juni scrambled along at his side, her little spirit quieted and held, yet somehow calmed.
As if she had fallen into the same peace.
At the top landing, Juni moved ahead to hold the door open for us to pass.
“Thank you, Little Bee,” Jud said so quietly, with so much care and adoration. He carried me directly into his bedroom, and he set me on the edge of the bed and knelt in front of me.
He brushed back my hair and searched me with those obsidian eyes. “I know you’re scared of it. Hell, I know this is terrifying for us both. Neither of us expected it. But I love you, Salem. I love you with all of me. With the good parts and the bad parts. With the ones that are whole and the ones that are broken. All of them—they belong to you.”
Emotion filled every cell in my body. Spirit and soul.
“Say it’s forever.” The plea left me on a whimper.
“It’s forever, baby. Today, tomorrow, and always.”
I touched his face as emotion overwhelmed. Possessed. “I love you, Jud. I love you in a way that should be impossible. With a love so big and massive it hurts.”
He cocked me a tender smile. “I understand that feeling well, darlin’. Think I’ve been feeling it since the second you walked into my life.”
He gathered my hand and pressed it to his lips. “I will do whatever it takes to protect you and Juni. You have to trust that.”
For a second, his eyes dropped closed. When he opened them, I was sure I could see all the way down into his soul.
He was laying himself bare.
There was no secret, no shame, no hurt that we wouldn’t hold for the other.
“You’ve been fighting for so long, Salem. Let me fight for you.”
I touched the lines of his rugged, handsome face. “With me,” I corrected. “Because I’ll never stop, not until she’s safe.”
Old wounds curled and gutted.
Jud held me by the face. As if he held those, too. Shared them with me. “I understand, darlin’. Neither will I.”
“Forever.” It left me on a promise.
The pad of his thumb traced along the gnarled scar at my jaw. “Forever.”
Energy whispered, a soft whirring in the air, stirring through the disorder.
My words were soggy. “We’re a mess.”
A smile twitched beneath his beard as he slipped his palm up to rest on my cheek.
Adoring.
Emphatic.
Whole.
“A beautiful fuckin’ mess.”
“You gonna have a kid around, you’re gonna have to learn to watch the bad words, Motorcycle Man, or else you’re gonna have to go to timeout all the ways in Antarctica with my mimi because she gots the bad words, too.”
Our little bubble popped, and Jud’s surprised laugh split through the severity.
“That so?” Jud’s entire face spread into a grin.
“Yup,” Juni said from the doorway.
My light. My hope. My joy.
Those were the things I wanted to give her, too.
A tremble of realization rocked through me.
And I knew, I couldn’t—couldn’t truly do that if I kept running. If I packed up and left every time I felt a shiver lift the hairs at the back of my neck.
It was time I truly fought.
Found a way to find true peace. I didn’t know how to do that, but I knew, right then, that Jud would be there beside me as I did.
“Then I guess I better watch it,” Jud replied.
“Because you wanna keep me?” She screeched it, pure delight.
Jud looked at me, his thumb tracing along my jaw before he looked back at my daughter. “Yeah, Juni, I wanna keep you.”
