“He was my security,” I scream. “And you took that away from me. Go to hell, 4B.”
“Yeah, you too, stick-up-your-ass 4A. I’m going to get dinner.” He adds, “I’ll be gone for twenty minutes. So if you hear a noise in the hall then, don’t panic. It’s just me, and not a fuckin’ criminal out to hurt you!”
I hold the door open long enough for Galileo to come through, then I meet Tucker’s eyes. “You ruined my safe haven. You ruined something that you had no reason to ruin. Go to hell.”
“It would be more fun there!” he shoots back.
It almost feels like we’re twelve, and ‘I know you are, I said you are, so what am I?’ is the best comeback we can conjure.
“When I get there, do you have a message to pass on to Lucifer?” He grins when my nostrils flare with rage. “You know him, don’t you?”
“Shut up! I hope you choke on your dinner. I’ll be sure to send flowers to your mother.”
“Bitch.” He turns on his heels and makes his way down the stairs. “I prefer hell anyway. The women don’t give me frostbite.”
“You’re a prick.” I run to the top of the stairs and lean over the banister. “You’re a…” I have nothing. I have no comeback under pressure. “Prick! You ruined the property value by moving in.”
“Probably should move, then.”
“I couldn’t agree more!”
“Not me.” On the second floor, he peeks between the stairs and looks up. “I meant you. Hurry up and leave, because you’re costing me a fortune in heating.”
“Asshole!”
Laughing, he only turns away and keeps moving. “I’ll try to be quiet when I get back, 4A. It would be a damn shame if I kept you awake again because I was being noisy.”
Turning with a grunt, I rush through my front door and slam it with an extra hard shove. Then I spin and press my back to the steel frame.
My chest rises and drops with heavy breaths, my heart races, and stars float in front of my eyes as I barely keep control of myself and stop from descending into a full panic attack.
Galileo sits on his haunches just six feet away, and tilts his head to the side with curiosity, but I can barely stand tall, I barely remain upright and breathing as my mind works hard on tricking me.
My trauma wants to hurt me. It wants to send me down dark and horrible alleyways, until I find that four days have passed, and I still can’t sleep. My mental health insists on spiraling, on hurtling me back a thousand days, and forcing me to undo all of my hard work.
“You listened to his command.” I sound like I’ve been eating sandpaper. “Dammit, Galileo. You listened to him.”
He tilts his head the other way.
“Galileo, down.”
The swelling seed of anxiety that rests in my stomach lessens a little when he drops flat with a fast slap on the floor.
“Galileo, sit.”
He whips back up to his haunches.
“Galileo, speak.”
A loud, instantaneous woof makes me jump.
It’s the final straw that allows a single tear to break through my lashes and stream over my cheek. “Dammit, Galileo.”
Sliding down the door, I drop to my ass and pull him in for a hug when he rushes forward and rests his snout against my neck.
He’s not a specially trained dog. He doesn’t come from some elite military training school where he knows his one and only job is to obey my command and make me feel safe. He’s just a mongrel dog that enjoys listening to my orders when I give them.
The fact that someone else gave him one and he obeyed shouldn’t be enough to break my heart the way it has.
“You’re such a silly dog.” I bury my face in his fur, and cry away the poison. Get it all out, purge the bullshit my subconscious wants to slap me with before it visits me in my dreams and gets worse. “You’re so naughty, Galileo. What’s gotten into you, huh?”
I push the Glock that Kane gave me for my birthday two feet to my left and turn the barrel toward the wall. It’s safe, I became proficient with a gun a long, long time ago. You can’t be Kane Bishop’s friend and not know how to handle yourself, but still, I push it away and pull Galileo onto my lap until he lays out with a heaving groan.
More than two hundred pounds lay on my thighs, but two black eyes watch