Page 30 of Promise of Destruction

I scream until I can breathe again.

By the time I wrap myself in a soft white towel, I’m tired enough to fall asleep.

Unfortunately, the minute I flop on the bed, deciding to deal with the consequences of going to bed with my hair wet, my exhaustion slips away from me. I successfully drove thoughts of Declan out of my head in the shower, but they come back so suddenly that it feels like a Mac truck slamming into me.

He must have followed me home yesterday. I’m not sure what he would have come here for—just to do what he did? To scare me? Or had he planned something more sinister?

The thought that my new boss has stalked me is terrifying enough that I have to entertain the idea again of just not showing up to work tomorrow. It’s tempting. I haven’t worked there all that long, so starting over wouldn’t be too difficult. Except for the obvious fact that Declan offered me ten times my previous salary.

Just one year of working for him would earn me enough to pay off my mortgage and all the debt that I’ve accrued since Vin died. One year would change my life, and once I pay off my bills, I can leave to find another job where I won’t have to work for a murderer.

Bold of you to assume you’d even make it a year,says a voice inside my head.

Would Declan kill me? He had an opportunity to do it before and yet he hadn’t. I woke up in a bathtub full of my own blood,but I don’t think that it was by mistake that I woke. If someone wanted me dead, I’d be dead. Particularly if Declan wanted me dead, I’m sure my heart would have stopped beating long ago. He’s made it clear that he’s the type of man who’s used to getting exactly what he wants, exactly when he wants it.

Of course, he’d had the opportunity before I’d written the hit piece on him. Maybe I’d just given him the motivation to finish what he started. Maybe he had come to my house last night with the intention of doing exactly that.

I lay flat on my back and pull the pillow over my face, wondering if I have it in me to hold it tightly enough for long enough to put an end to everything.

I don’t.

When I pull the pillow away from my face again, I gulp in as much air as my lungs can take.

Once I’m reasonably calmed, I gather my composure enough to sit up and look around the room.

As much as I hate this house, I love it.

It’s the place that Vin and I spent so much of our time together. It’s the place where we were going to grow old together. It’s the place where we planned to bring a baby home.

My heart aches at the thought of leaving it, as if I’d be leaving a part of Vin and that piece of my life behind. But I could do it if I have to.

Except I can’t.

I’m underwater on my mortgage, one check away from having it ripped away from me. That thought is absolutely more terrifying than the thought of leaving the house of my own accord. And it’s somehow inexplicably more terrifying than Declan Evers or anything he can throw at me.

I owe it to Vin to stay here and fight for what we had. It’s what he would have wanted from me.

I won’t give up. I decided that on the psych hold, when everyone had been treating me like I already had. It seemed at the time minimally better than being treated like a criminal.

But that’s the thing. The criminals around here aren’t being punished. Nobody is holding them accountable.

Which means I have two jobs to do.

twenty-one

Soren

Thefirstflutteringofmy lashes hurts.

I think consciousness comes back to me in the darkness, because one second, I’m piping pink and blue icing along the cake, singing loudly and off key.

The next minute, I just am. I exist in darkness and a hundred scenarios shoot across my mind, trying to come up with a reason that I exist in the dark now.

I’m not sure how much time passes while I float there, somewhere between dead and not.

It’s the pain that roots me to something when I become aware enough to feel it. And then I can’tnotfeel it, because it’s threatening to consume me.

Everything hurts.