Veda gasped in a breath. “Jake, I can’t let you—”
He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “As long as you promise me one thing.”
Veda paused, her wet eyes growing larger.
Jake leaned in, baring his teeth, a scowl crossing his face and darkening it in an instant as he spat, “Fucking finish them all.”
11
“Fuck, shit, and balls. Fuck, shit, and balls. Fuck, shit, and balls.”
Veda’s three-worded chant did wonders for her sanity as she raced down the wet sidewalk later that evening, seeing the restaurant sign glowing in the distance. She could only pray, as the rain showers pounded down and stuck her curls to her skin, as well as her baby-blue scrubs, that they’d let her in the restaurant looking like this. In her haste to get closer to that glowing sign, she soared right into a deep puddle on the sidewalk. Water that was surely saturated with saliva, bird droppings, and maybe even a little urine, flew up from the puddle and soaked her socks. Usually, the feeling of wet socks squishing inside her equally sopping sneakers would be enough to send Veda into a mild panic attack.
But not tonight.
Tonight, she had bigger fish to fry.
Tonight she’d been caught red-handed by Jake and had spent hours telling him her story. Tonight she’d been so entrenched in the past that she’d forgotten about her present. She’d forgotten to check her phone—which she always kept on silent at work.
Tonight the ten men who’d brutalized her had proved, once again, that what they’d done to her at that party was only the beginning. That they would never stop fucking up her life as long as they were still infecting her mind and her heart.
Tonight she’d unlocked her phone to twenty missed calls from Gage. Twenty missed calls and twenty voicemails—the anger in his voice more apparent with each message he’d left.
After saying a quick goodbye to Jake, Veda had raced out of the hospital as fast as she could, cursing herself for forgetting their date night. After a month of laying low due to the scandal following his breakup with Scarlett, Veda knew how important this night had been to Gage. His chance to prove to the world that he didn’t care what they thought. That he was willing to put his neck and his reputation on the line for Veda because she was worth it. It had been his chance to show the world why calling off his wedding, just weeks before the ceremony, wasn’t just the only decision, but the right one.
“Fuck. Shit. And balls.” Veda forced herself to stop thinking about it because she was about two seconds from emptying her stomach.
Still sending puddles flying into the air under her running feet, she said a prayer of thanks when she made it to the doors of the restaurant, pulling them open and hurrying up to the hostess stand.
The slim teenage hostess reared back when Veda barreled to a stop at her stand as if the woman who’d just charged in looking like a wet rat might be highly contagious.
“Um… welcome to DiMaggio's?” the hostess said, as more of a question than a greeting, her blue eyes running Veda’s body with an eyebrow cocked.
Veda clutched both sides of the hostess stand, her breathing short. “Blackwater…” She finally croaked. “Party of two?”
Realization washed over the hostess’ face, and she lifted her chin high, a pained look crossing her face. “Oh…” she started. “You’re Veda.”
Veda’s eyes widened, thankful that the hostess knew her and wasn’t likely to kick her out on her ass. “Yes! Veda Vandyke.”
“Yeah…” the hostess dragged on. Veda noticed her fellow employees peeking around corners and shooting side eyes to the hostess stand. Some of them actually found the balls to approach on slow feet, all looking at Veda with naked judgment soaking their eyes.
“Yeah…” The hostess dragged, again, squinting. “He left.”
Veda’s smile vanished. “No.”
The hostess nodded. “About twenty minutes ago. He waited for, like, two hours.” Her pained expression deepened like there was someone hidden behind the stand stabbing her toes with needles.
Veda felt her eyes grow desperate. “Fuck. Shit. And balls.”
The hostess sucked in a breath through her teeth, eyes narrowing. “Yeah…” Her eyes brightened again, shooting back to Veda. “But, thanks to you, I won two hundred dollars!”
Veda looked on blankly, wondering if that little dumpling really expected that to make her feel better.
A kid with a white apron around his waist and a tray under his arm came up and leaned on the stand. He glowered at Veda. “How in the world could you stand up a man that gorgeous?” he accused. “Shame on you.”
Without another word, just a sigh of exasperation from the pit of her raging stomach, Veda turned on her heel and raced out the door.
She couldn’t even be mad at that meddling bus boy.
He was absolutely right.
Shame on her.
—
Her sneakers still squished and gurgled from the water that had accumulated inside them, and her sopping wet socks were still very close to giving her a nervous breakdown, but that didn’t stop Veda from racing across the wood floors of her apartment and barreling into the doorway of her bedroom.
Her mouth fell at the sight of Gage. He faced her bed with his back to her, wearing charcoal gray sweatpants and a fitted black hoodie. The hood was pulled low over his eyes. If he knew she watched him from the doorway, he didn’t show it. Eyes down, he moved from the bed to the dresser, a new handful of clothes in his hand each time, shoving them into the black duffle bag he’d situated in the middle of the bed.
The only thing that stopped Veda from collapsing to the floor was the rapid slam of her heart. She knew that, once it calmed, her body would be left with so much residual adrenaline that she’d be up all night like she’d just finished a triple latte.
“Gage.” Racing across the room, she wrapped her arms around him from behind. Every hard muscle in his body flexed tighter. He stopped packing but didn’t acknowledge her. Not with his eyes, his voice, not even with a touch against the arms she had wrapped around his waist. His arms remained slack at his sides.
Her skin felt like it was peeling away from the bone, and the potent fear slicing through her seemed powerful enough to cause internal bleeding. A slow bleed, the kind that snuck up out of nowhere and sent her tumbling to her death before she even knew anything was wrong.
The darkness seemed to permeate through every inch of her body the longer she stood there, holding him, without him holding her back. Just one touch, one whisper, one look would be enough. Even if the touch was an indication to remove her hands from his body. Even if it was a look that set her ablaze. Even if it was a whisper filled with venomous words. Any reaction, good or bad, would be enough to calm the shadows looming deeper inside her—even if only for a moment. Long enough to beg his forgiveness, at least.
The warmth of his fingers covered hers where they were locked tight at his bellybutton, eliciting the breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding.
“Let go, Veda.”
Even if those words were the last thing she wanted to hear, just the deep boom of his voice was enough to enter her body and send it awash with a single shard of light. Enough to let the shadows know she wasn’t going down without a fight.
She tightened her fingers, knowing that if he really wanted to pull them apart, he could do it easily. “Gage, I’m so, so sorry.”
Silence.
His voice lowered. “Let go.”
Veda took a deep breath, eyes fluttering shut. She buried her nose in his sweatshirt and breathed deep, letting his scent fill her body. Another beam of light blasted through her. Enough to allow her to release him.
The moment she freed him, he moved back to the dresser.
Veda watched him. “What are you doing?”
Gage kept his eyes down. He licked his top teeth, making his upper lip protrude, as he moved back to his bag. “I’m sleeping at my place tonight.”
Veda held her b
reath again, realizing it hadn’t been enough. The tiny slivers of luminance his voice and halfhearted touch had brought to life inside her were quickly losing the war once more. She bit her lip when the sickness in her stomach seemed to jet up her throat and make it wobble.
He went back to the dresser.
Her fingers twitched to reach for him, eyes darting as her mind fought to find the right words. She curled her arms over her head when she realized those words didn’t exist.
So she said the first thing the came to her mind, her arms collapsing back to her sides as he ruffled through the dresser. “Baby, I have had the day from hell.”
“You too, huh?” He didn’t even turn to look at her.
Veda felt herself beginning to panic because he’d never treated her like this. “I was swamped at work…” She was stunned when a part of her wanted to tell him the truth. A lie had never been so hard to think up. “And my last patient of the day… she had complications. She wouldn’t wake up…”
Gage stopped rummaging through the dresser drawer. The clothes he’d clutched in his hand tumbled back down. His head fell forward.
Silence.
He turned on his heel.
Veda took a small step back, her fists clenching tight when her fingers began to shake.
The first look he’d given her all night was rife with disbelief. “Really?” He jammed two arrow straight fingers towards the window. “Because I called the hospital, Veda—five times—and they told me that you’d given your last patient of the day to Anita, three hours before our date…”
Veda sputtered, letting her eyes flutter closed. Caught in a lie. Red handed. There was no escape. No way to retaliate. She couldn’t tell him she’d missed their date because she’d been reliving the worst night of her life with Jake in the pharmacy closet. That she’d missed their date because her professional future had been hanging in the balance. That her freedom had been hanging in the balance.
“Baby…” When she opened her eyes and saw fury staining his, her voice took on a quiver. “I asked Anita to cover so I’d have more time to get ready, but then—”
“Stop.” His voice rose, high and fast, booming off the walls and making her jolt again. The sight of her frightened seemed to upset him even more. “Stop lying to me.”
Veda clapped her lips closed, her fists now pulled so tightly she felt seconds from breaking a knuckle.
His chest heaved up and down, faster with each moment of silence that passed. “Were you with Lincoln Hill?”
Shock flew through Veda like an electric zap. She felt it crunching her face. “No. Jesus, Gage, I’ve told you a hundred times. There’s nothing going on between Linc and me. That man, literally, barely tolerates me.”
“That might mean something to me if today were the first time I’d seen him sniffing around. But it wasn’t. It’s constant, Veda.”
“Gage—”
“And I know…” He ran a hand down his face. “I know how important it is to you to be in charge of your own body. Which is why I kept biting my tongue. I can’t anymore. You’re giving him something that…” His teeth bared. “You’re giving him parts of you that you can’t give me. I don’t know why you can’t. But you can’t. You won’t.”
She cooed softly, closing the space between them while reaching for the tie at the waistband of his sweats. She pulled it apart. Her eyes lifted and searched his, and she began a slow sink to her knees.
Gage seized her wrists, stopping her.
Veda stood tall, gaping at him.
“As it turns out…” His jaw tightened. “Sucking my dick isn’t the automatic solution to all our problems.”
Veda’s teeth began to chatter. She opened her mouth to speak, but only silence came because she couldn’t tell him the truth. She couldn’t tell him that she wouldn’t be alive to have this argument with him if it hadn’t been for Linc. That Linc was the reason she still breathed today, walked today, free to exact the revenge that would make her the woman who deserved a man like Gage.
The longer she found herself watching him, however, she wondered if she would ever be that woman. Even after taking revenge on all ten of her assaulters, would she ever deserve Gage?
He gave her another moment to refute his words, and when she didn’t even try, he turned back to the dresser, grabbing more clothes.
Veda’s eyes grew wider with every new journey he made, back and forth to his duffle bag, and only when her eyes went moist did she croak. “Are we breaking up?”
Gage slammed the rest of his clothes into the bag and ripped at the zipper, the sound ringing out into the thick air between them. He stood tall and faced her while slinging the bag over his shoulder, his chin jutting up and making the hoodie on his head fall back and reveal his face.
Veda sucked in a breath at what the shadow of his hood had been hiding. His cheeks, drained of color. His lips, parched and cracked. His eyes, bloodshot.
He seemed to understand that, in the absence of the hood, she could now clearly see what she’d done to him, because he looked away, running his hand down his shadowed jaw. “I need some time.”
Veda shook her head. “But we’re not breaking up?”
He cut a look at her from the corner of his eye.
This time, it was Veda’s voice that rose, stepping gingerly forward. “Gage, I made a mistake.”
He pressed the beds of his fingers to his heart. All five of them shook out of control. “You can’t connect with me. In a real way.”
Veda opened her mouth to remind him, once again, that she’d warned him. She’d warned him about how broken she was. That she was still a work in progress. Something stopped her before the words came out.
“I don’t understand why.” His voice wobbled, lips curling. He managed to regain control before his face betrayed his emotions any further. “But it’s breaking my heart.”
Veda tried to reach for him, but he stepped away.
He held a hand up between them. “I’m taking a few nights. Maybe we need that. Then we can talk about…”
Veda dreaded the end of that sentence, so when he turned away without finishing it, she found herself exhaling sharply.
Every bone in her body told her to chase after him, but her mind seemed to understand that that was a mistake. She’d never seen Gage so angry, so disconnected, and if what she felt right then was what she’d been making him feel in the short time they’d been together, she knew it was better to give him his space.
Because that feeling? It was pretty shitty.
The front door slammed closed, so hard it vibrated the walls all the way back to the bedroom.
Veda lingered in the middle of the floor, hearing the violence of her own heavy breathing, her nails digging into her palms as she stared off into space.
Battle won, the darkness loomed. This time, it didn’t just fill her body from head to toe, but her entire bedroom. It traveled, billowing through the room like black smoke before it snuck past her doorsill and went to work filling her living room as well.
She’d only returned to Shadow Rock to destroy the ten monsters who’d destroyed her. Three months ago, she’d been sure she’d planned her revenge to the letter—so perfectly it didn’t leave room for any mistakes.
But she hadn’t thought about the fallout, the shock waves, the inevitable reverberation that always followed a nuclear blast, reaching far and wide, poisoning people who hadn’t even chosen to flip the switch. People who had no idea a flip had been switched at all.
Maybe she was destined to contaminate anyone and anything that dared come too close, swallowing them up in the darkness she’d once been convinced was safely contained in her thundering heart.
“Fuck. Shit.” She sighed. “Balls.”
12
“Yo, Linc!” Forensic technician, Martin Zhang, nodded at Linc the next morning. His eyes shrinking with glee. “How’s it hanging? Or, not hanging?” He cut his eyes at Linc. “Balls still secure?”
Linc made his way into th
e forensics lab. “Shit. For now. Until we figure out this guy’s motive, no one’s safe.”
Martin’s eyes bulged, and he slapped both hands over the crotch of his white lab pants, tittering with pleasure because his joke had landed a rare smile on Linc’s face.
Linc circled the many sterile, gleaming tables of the lab, careful to fight back his incessant need to touch everything he passed, knowing that every item beyond those doors was as delicate as fine china.
“Any leads?” Martin asked, straightening up.
“Still chasing our tails. Hoping to find something in here.” He came to a stop at Martin’s table, drinking in the various pieces of evidence. Sighing, Linc released his bun and let his hair fan around his face before throwing his head back and retying it.
“Come on, man. You know how much I hate that. Getting your dog hair all over my lab. I had to buy a new broom last week because the first one choked to death on your hair.”
Linc fought a smile, leaning on the table with his eyes lowered.
Martin sighed. “Who am I kidding? I’m just jealous. The same man-bun that has every woman on this island throwing themselves at you would make me look like a fucking buffoon.”
“Yes, it would. And yes…” He lifted his smiling eyes to Martin. “You are.”
“Hey, you never told me how your first AA meeting went yesterday? You look miserable, so I’m guessing not good. But, on the other hand, you always look miserable, so…”
Linc hissed.
“Proud of you, man.”
“Don’t be too proud.” Linc pushed away from the table and crossed his arms. “Had to leave early since, clearly, The Shadow Rock Chopper has no plans on slowing down.”
“I thought we didn’t name them until there was a proven pattern? This guy’s only struck twice.”
“Couldn’t help myself.”
“The Shadow Rock Chopper…” Martin repeated it, thought about it, and then curled his lip. “Nah, too on the nose. What about The Shadow Rock Slicer? The Sterilizer? The Carver—oh, the Shadow Rock Scyther!”
Tingle (Revenge Book 2) Page 11