Page 15 of Toxic
“Tessa,” he begins, and Iwince.
“Don’t.” My voice doesn’t shake as I settle into the familiar numbness. There wasn’t much mess from his bandages, so I pack up what little remains while keeping my back to him. Somehow, I know he won’t push me now. Somehow, I know he wants more than my pain, which is almostworse.
Pain, I know how to deal with. This...whatever it is that he makes me feel is way moredangerous.
When I turn, he’s waiting for me by the hall to the infirmary, his stance deceptively casual. Those arms, which were just around my body, are crossed over the chest I still can’t wait to explore at my leisure, despite the regret coursing through me like venom. I know full well he’s deception layered in an enigma, but my body still hungersforhim.
“This can’t happen again,” I say without meeting his eyes.I hold on to his promise like a drowning woman. It is my only lifeline. My only way to make sense of the mistake I made. “You won’t try to kiss me again or come see me,” I say firmly. “I did what you wanted. Nowit’sover.”
He nods, but I note he doesn’t confirm or deny that he won’t seek me out again. “Think what you want,” he says instead, “but we’re farfromover.”
I don’t want to argue with him for fear of a repeat, so I bundle my things back into my kit and scurry to the storage cabinet like the little mouse he thinks I am. I feel his stare on my back the entire way, and then I spend way more time than necessary organizing and reorganizing the supplies. They’re already perfectly aligned, all the medicines and bandages in neat little rows. I envy their order when I’m in so muchdisarray.
I have no idea what the hell I’m doing or where the hell Ibelong.
I know I should be sorting through my next move and preparing to handle what comes next. But my brain is too busy racing, trying to make sense of what just happened. It’s useless anyway. There is no way to impart logic onto chaos. And that’s exactly whatGracinis.
Chaos.
Hours later,I finally have a few minutes to myself. Without thinking about it, I pull up Gracin’s name in the patient directory.The file I’d received for his patient records lists only his inmate number for security purposes, which is most definitely not the case with hisofficialfile.
His intake photo should have been utterly repulsive. I mean, who looks good in the watery blue jumpsuits they make the prisoners wear? He does, of course. His hair is longer in the picture, so they must have shaved it after he got to the prison. He faces the camera with an insolent upturn to his chin and a flinty, hard look in his eye that I’ve come to know intimately. The stark lighting makes the shadows beneath his striking cheekbones even more pronounced. Turns his face into all angles and hard edges. Just like the man, Ithink.
I take a deep, cleansing breath as I try to talk myself out of what I’m about to do, but it’s useless. Instead, I tear my eyes away from his picture and begin to read the notes in his file. As I do, my heart starts to thud thickly in my chest, and I bite down on one nail as my other hand taps down thereport.
GracinKingsley.
GracinKingsley.
Just repeating his name now has my bloodpumping.
The basic, animalistic parts of me that had enjoyed our dirty liaison react with an uncharacteristic viciousness and beg toknowmore.
After a quick glance at the office door, I hunch over the keyboard and continue to read. According to the birthdate on the form, Gracin is thirty-five, born and bred in Macon, Georgia, as he told me when we first met. He lived a not-so-charmed life of abuse and poverty before his parents died and he was remanded into state custody. I flip to his medical history, and my stomach plummets. He hadn’t been lying about suffering abuse at the hands of his father. Included in his file is an extensive list of reports from various officials and healthcare professionals containing dozens of injuries, including but not limited to concussions, burns, and broken bones. My heart breaks as I picture him as a little boy at the hands of a man like Vic. The laundry list of crimes on his rap sheet is both terrifying and . . . impressive.His records don't explain why he’s in prison, but it has to be something terrible for him to have wound up atBlackthorne.
I don’t know if I even wanttoknow.
Within the confines of the prison gates, our relationship, for lack of a better word, is in a little bubble. I know I’m safe to an extent because he can’t get out. Aside from our brief contact during the workday, I don’t have to see him if I don’t want to, and I know that if I ever needed help, it would be one small call away. Learning more about his past makes it all real, final,definite.
I close out of the file and log out of the computer for my shift, erasing my steps along the way the best I know how. It’s a risk looking up the restricted file, but I had to find out more. Now, I’m afraid I know too much and notenough.
The house isquiet when I arrive home an hour late, but already, I feel the tension crackling in the air. I don’t see Vic anywhere, but I can sense him. Like prey who knows a predator is near. Watching. Waiting tostrike.
For the first time since he hit me, I’m not terrified. I’m angry. And I know Gracin is the reason why. He makes me want things I can’t have. A different life. Him. Tofightback.
It’s dangerous, this seedofhope.
Probably a littlecrazy.
How can a man like him make me want to be a strongerperson?
The irony islaughable.
In fact, as I stand frozen in the front door, I laugh. No doubt Vic must wonder what the hell is wrong with his silly little wife that she’s laughing like a loon, but for once, I don’t care. I don’t care that he’s going to take his fists to me in the very nearfuture.
I don’t care that I kissed a man who isn’t myhusband.
I think crossing the professional line, realizing I’m capable of terrible things, has done something to mybrain.