Page 20 of Resist Me Not (Bloody Desires #4)

Chapter eleven

TREY

W alker stayed the night. I was and was not surprised to find him in my bed when I returned from disposing of Wayfair’s body. Walker slept rather soundly for someone who had been so frightened earlier. He woke when I joined him but settled again in my arms and drifted back to sleep.

What a fool I was for allowing our date despite not having finished with the evening’s victim in time. It was careless of me. Dangerous. As dangerous perhaps as letting Walker live.

The only other people who ever knew enough to turn me in weren’t granted the same mercy.

So why did I spare Walker? I’m not certain of the answer myself yet, other than wanting to continue feeling the wholeness he stirs in me. Perhaps that is all it is, but it is something I have never known.

I can tell Walker isn’t sure what to do after we both awaken the next morning, and it settles in his mind that none of what happened was a dream.

The good and the bad were all real, and he chose to stay, just as I chose to let him.

Whether he will continue to choose me is something I need to be vigilant of.

If his resolve changes, he may yet need to be dealt with.

For the first time, thinking that way sits strangely with me. Heavy. I don’t want to deal with Walker. I want to hold him, keep him, comfort him. I want to bring back his golden glow that seeing my darkness has so thoroughly dimmed.

Walker checks his phone, likely for distraction before we have said much to each other, and his brow furrows at what he finds. I checked it last night to confirm he hadn’t made any calls or sent any messages. He hadn’t. But it appears someone has been trying to get a hold of him since then.

“Is something wrong?” I ask while dressing.

Walker sits in his underwear on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t know. I have a bunch of messages and missed calls.

I don’t recognize all the numbers. I’m not awake enough to deal with this.

I need to go home.” He shoves his phone face down into the sheets, glancing slightly at me but not really looking.

“I need to shower. Get some fresh clothes.”

“You can shower here. Borrow some of my clothes.”

“I don’t think I’d fit into anything of yours.”

“I’d be willing to be the judge of that.”

Walker laughs, and for a brief moment, there’s a spark of his old light. But then it fades as if his laughter surprised him and he isn’t sure he’s allowed to do that anymore. “I need to go home,” he says again.

“Let me take you.” I finish buttoning my shirt and bring him his clothes from last night to change back into for now. “I’ll leave you be once you are safely home. I’ll even stay away as long as you need. But call me later?”

Finally, he looks at me, accepting the bundled pants and shirt with a nod. “Okay.”

I call a rideshare for two stops. First, we drop off Walker. He is mostly quiet during the trip, but he leans against me without prompting and lets me hold him.

“Call me,” I say again when he steps out, and he clings to my hand, squeezing it, before he nods and leaves me.

“Is this right?” the driver asks.

“Yes,” I answer, but it is understandable why he wants confirmation.

Stop two is just around the corner.

I get coffee from one of the nearby Starbucks.

I know Walker won’t leave until after he has showered, changed, and listened to his messages.

He might not leave at all. But I have a hunch, and so as time ticks away, enough that all of those things could have transpired, I wait around the corner of his building and watch his door.

After less than an hour, he comes back out.

He is more agitated than before and failing to hide it. Wherever he is headed, it must be within walking distance, or perhaps he welcomes the walk to clear his head.

I follow, being sure to always have several people between us so I can duck out of view should he turn back. Which he does. Often. He expects me to be following him. Such a smart boy. Possibly paranoid, but then his paranoia is warranted.

He does not spot me.

We are headed in the direction of my hotel, but just when I wonder if he truly is going back there, he takes a left. A police station is that way. There are several precincts in the city, but this one is the nearest between Walker’s apartment and my hotel.

Between Walker’s apartment and Curtis’s.

Don’t do this, Walker , I think, closing the gap between us, but there is no doubt where he is headed as we near the final intersection.

Even being behind him, I can tell that his gaze fixates on the building.

Something changed his mind, or perhaps it always would have been changed with enough time and being out of my presence.

Despite the proximity of the police station and witnesses around, this is an ideal street for a quick abduction. No cameras, the sidewalk is narrow, and there are many alcoves and alleys from here to the end of the street, where one more crosswalk is all that’s left before Walker turns me in.

I have to do it. I have to take the risk of someone seeing me grab him, pull him into one of the alleys and kill him quickly. I have my switchblade on me. I will have to ditch it afterward, but I…

I…

I have to act. Walker is almost to the crosswalk.

I feel the knife in my pocket, readying to grab him. He hasn’t glanced back in some time, but he will when he reaches the crosswalk. I know he will. It’s now or never, or I am caught either way. I am ready to spring forward, legs taut. Just one leap, grab, pull, and…

And…

I duck into the alley alone just before Walker can look back and see me while waiting for the signal to cross the street.

I can’t do it. I have to but I can’t. I don’t want to.

And because I don’t, I miss my chance, and when I glance back out of the alley, I watch Walker enter the police station.

All I can do now is wait or flee. I should do the latter, get a head start on leaving the city.

I am doing everything wrong, everything against protocol, and all for a man I have only known for a week and a half.

A man who, this very moment, might be turning me over to the police.

Just my luck, there is a Starbucks on this block too, so I get another coffee while I wait.

Walker comes back out of the police station far too quickly to have been in there for a confession about knowing a serial killer. Did he change his mind again? Or was he in there for another reason?

He had messages from numbers he didn’t recognize. Perhaps he was summoned.

I feel a sense of relief wash over me that letting Walker live was not the mistake I feared.

I am… glad, so very glad, and as he crosses back to my side of the street, I wait out in the open for him to spot me.

Walker startles when he does but relaxes into an expression that says my presence is exactly what he expected. He knows me well.

“Might I buy you a cup?” I ask, lifting my coffee and using it to gesture back at the Starbucks.

“I thought you were going to leave me alone for as long as I wanted,” Walker tosses back at me.

“Do you want me to leave you alone right now?”

He deflates a little, shoulders sagging, and shakes his head.

I take his arm to lead him to the coffee shop.

Inside, after getting Walker an herbal tea—his choice, since he said a stimulant was the last thing he wanted in his system right now—we find a small table in the corner, far enough from anyone else to keep our conversation private.

I guessed right. The messages on Walker’s phone were partially from a detective working on Curtis’s missing persons case. The other messages were from Curtis’s friends. He admits it all to me and what was discussed inside without much prompting.

The smell of cherries and almond bark hits me now that we are sitting closely met at the tiny café table—Walker’s shampoo.

His hair is still partially damp from his shower, even after the walk here.

He cradles his tea in his hands like he more so wants the heat and smell than to actually drink it.

He is also staring into it more than looking at me.

He seems so small, so fragile right now. All I want is to swaddle him and promise I can make it all better. He doesn’t need to know I almost ended his life in an alley.

“So, um, without me being able to offer them anything, they’re closing Curtis’s case before it’s barely been opened. All evidence points to him ditching town more than foul play.”

As intended. “You are having a difficult time with this, Walker.” I reach for him, slowly, like approaching an injured animal in the woods. He lets my hands close over his. “But you didn’t turn me in.”

His gray eyes finally meet mine. They are especially gray today, almost colorless beyond that muted shade. “I don’t have any proof that you did anything. You cleaned everything up, remember?” he whispers.

“Is that the only reason?”

“I don’t know.”

I stroke my thumbs across his skin. I know it relaxes him. I watch his shoulders slump lower as some of his tension leaves him. “You were already edgy when you arrived last night. Suspicious of me then, even before you saw Mr. Wayfair?”

Walker flinches at the reminder of the body. He tugs his hands from mine and takes a sip of his tea before answering. “A few things weren’t adding up right, especially with Curtis. And then I… I saw you near Saks when you said you were elsewhere, so I tailed you for a while.”

Remarkable. I have never been tailed before, only done the tailing. I didn’t notice Walker, too focused on my own quarry. I would have to be more vigilant in the future.

“We saw that man twice before, so seeing him again in Saks while you were there felt too weird to be a coincidence. I arrived at our date early to… confront you, call it off? I don’t even know.

But you had everything set up so nicely, I convinced myself that what I’d seen was random chance. It wasn’t though, was it?”