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Psycho - Puddle Of Mudd

I hate seeing other people in pain. It grabs ahold of something deep down in my heart and pulls painfully.

Seeing Ronan cry suddenly shoots me back to when I was a child, when Dad left my room at night, and all I wanted to do was cry. No one was there to comfort me. But maybe I can be here to comfort Ronan.

“Hey,” I reach out, putting my hand on Ronan’s knee.

He flashes a tear-filled, vicious look at me. “Don’t touch me.”

Immediately, I take my hand back. I’m not exactly sure what to say. I know nothing will make it better. Being a cop, I’ve learned that people in crisis don’t want solutions. They just want to be heard.

Which is fucking hard to do. I just want to give solutions. Like, hey, why don’t you let me go and forget I exist? One less asshole to deal with. I swear I won’t tell anyone.

But I don’t say that. I drop my arms on my knees. “Don’t go out there. He’s being a fucking bitch.” It’s true. I know Logan’s worried about Ronan, but it’s made him storm around the house, threatening me, the fridge, alcohol, Callum, pretty much everyone and everything. Eventually, he’ll settle down and manically start sketching on his tablet, then inevitably throw his pen across the room. At this point, the pissy murderer is a better option.

Ronan takes the bait. “He always is. I’ll beat the piss out of his bitch ass.” He starts to storm to the door.

I rest my head against the closet. “You’re not going to wait?”

“What?” Ronan barely turns.

“Till he’s asleep? May be able to get a few good hits-s-s in before he wakes up.”

Ronan pauses this time. He turns fully back to look at me and narrows his eyes. “What do you care?”

“Well, he threatened my mom.” I close my eyes. I still haven’t figured out how to get out of this mess. I’ve been in survival mode after shooting that man.

I shot a man.

The panic rushes through me again. I’m fucked. I’m so fucking fucked. And what does that mean for me? I can’t go back to my job. Can’t go back and pretend like I don’t deserve to sit in jail for what I’ve done.

I suck in a shaky breath. “I brought you something.”

I know it’s wrong. Well, Logan would say it’s wrong. He went through my cabinets and drained any alcohol down the sink. Then broke all the bottles, cussing up a storm. But he missed one tiny bottle of cinnamon whiskey way back in the freezer. I forgot I had it until I was searching for dinner the other night.

I hold the liquor out. It’s not much. But it might help Ronan’s body adjust to complete sobriety. I know most people do a gradual wean if it’s this bad.

Ronan’s eyes widen a second before he darts over. He rips the bottle from my hand like I’m going to take it away. There’s a second before he downs it where he watches me, staring deep into my eyes.

“Why?”

I shrug.

“Is this drugged?”

I look up at him sharply. Drugged? It takes me a second to process that. No, I didn’t drug him. Where in the fuck would I get drugs? And if I had them, why wouldn’t I have used them by now? “No.”

Ronan just watches me a second longer, then takes a single sip. He swallows slowly, closing his eyes briefly.

I would ask him why he drinks. But I think I know. First of all, what cop doesn’t drink? Secondly, I saw his list. I saw the turmoil.

Ronan Carter is passively suicidal. He doesn’t want to live, but he doesn’t want to die.

I wince. There was a time when I thought that if I just died, my dad wouldn’t punish me anymore. That everything would just…end. That I would finally be free.

When I look up, Ronan is still clutching the mostly full bottle, staring at me. Like I’m a puzzle that he can’t figure out.

I shake my head. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

Ronan doesn’t look like he buys it, so I keep talking, “Maybe I’m just buttering up the one person who might let me go?”

Ronan grips it tighter. There’s a long silence where I think he won’t say anything, then Ronan mutters, “You know we can never let you go. Right?”

I wince, lowering my head. Deep down, I know that. As long as I’m living, I will be tied to Ronan Carter and Logan Sutton. And they will be tied to me. My stomach does a weird twist at that.

“Give me some of that.” I motion at the drink.

Ronan yanks it away from me.

“Chris-s-s-t.” I let my head drop back onto the wall. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’ll never be free. As if the other events didn’t secure it, pulling the trigger sure did. And man, I get it. I don’t want to be sober for this, either.

Because part of me is terrified of this new future, and part of me is excited that I get to stay with Ronan and Logan.

And that’s the part that is going to get me killed.