Page 4 of Faded Gray Lines

He growled low in his throat, his inked arm lifting mine above my head. “Don’t make me stop you.”

He wanted a fight, but he wouldn’t be the first man. I knew how this conversation went. I could recite it by heart. Same entrance, same lines, and from what I could smell, the same half bottle of Jack Daniels on his breath.

“Look, all I came here to do was break up with you. I didn’t see anything. Just let me go, and we’ll pretend this didn’t happen.”

“Oh, you think it’s that simple?” He smiled. “I’m the only one standing in the way of your worst nightmare. Leighton, listen to me—”

I cut him off with a bloodcurdling scream. Shocked, he lunged forward and cupped his hand over my mouth. The impact knocked us both off balance, slamming my head into the wall. As a sharp pain throbbed in my skull, the kitchen light cast a faint glow on his face, and in my haze, years faded away. Whiskey no longer swam in his eyes. It was the devil himself.

That was the moment my conscience abandoned me. Blood rushed through my veins and filled my ears as I grasped for the gun. We struggled, his aggression spurring me on. Curses flew from both our mouths as we tangled, his much larger body spinning me around while trying to wrestle me to the floor.

I will not die here.

“Fucking let go, Leighton!”

He stumbled. I stumbled. He shoved. I shoved. We moved in perfect sync, dancing a deadly tango. Only this dance would end with a bullet in between my lips instead of a rose. However, Luis underestimated me. He wasn’t the first monster I’d fought, and he wasn’t the first devil I’d outrun.

The minute his ankles hit the coffee table, time stopped. I watched his legs fly out from under him, crashing through the glass and taking me with him. Our chests slammed together with our hands tangled around the trigger.

I screamed just as the gun went off and waited for the pain. When it didn’t come, I rolled off Luis and scanned the front of my sweatshirt. It was soaked—saturated with deep crimson red, but it was perfectly intact. It didn’t make sense.

Then Luis coughed, and I forced myself to climb onto my knees and face it. The right side of his stomach bloomed dark red over his white T-shirt, and his eyes fixated on my hands. They spoke louder than any words ever could.

Look what you did.

Look at yourself.

So, I did. They were sticky and warm, the tips dripping like a faucet, while still holding the gun.

“No!” All I heard was the roar of my own voice as I dropped the weapon and jerked Luis’s shirt up.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

I swallowed back vomit while pressing both hands against his stomach. Pressure was good. Pressure would stop the bleeding. But it didn’t. Liquid oozed between my fingers, and the harder I pressed, the faster it seeped.

“Luis!” I screamed, lowering my face to his in a panic. “I didn’t mean it!”

His response was a gurgle. Maybe it was my name. Maybe it was a plea for help, or maybe it was him cursing me to hell. It didn’t matter. If he died, I had a secured reservation. With one last cough, his eyes glazed over, and he never moved again. I felt numb, staring blankly at him as the reality of what I’d done set in.

A strangled sob spilled out as I crawled in a daze toward my purse. It took four tries to pull out my phone and dial the number I knew by heart.

“Lil’ Bit? It’s late. Are you okay?” My brother sounded sleepy. Part of me immediately regretted calling him, so I said nothing. I couldn’t. Once I spoke the words, they were real.

“Leighton?” he repeated, this time sharper and more alert. “Leighton, answer me.”

“He’s dead.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Who’s dead?”

“My boyfriend. I killed him.” The words came so easily I wondered if I’d really said them. “I’m at his apartment. He...he was going to hurt me.”

“Fuck.”

Static filled the line, or maybe it was the static in my head. Whichever it was, a long pause sent my pulse racing. “Brody?”

He cursed again. “Are you on your own phone?”

“Yes.”