breathing flames down each of his shaking fingers, and the gun waved unsteadily. His eyes were wide and glassy, flashing nervously between us. It was a cool night, but he was drenched in sweat. The guy was worse than just pissed off—he was strung out and unpredictable.
“Look, dude. I’ve got, like, two hundred bucks in my truck. Just take it.”
He tilted his head menacingly. “Two hundred bucks? Two. Hundred. Bucks? There was over forty thousand dollars in that fucking bag! And you want to give me two hundred?” He rushed forward, not stopping until his hand was around my throat and the gun planted firmly in the center of my forehead. “That’s not even a payment!” Spit flew from his mouth as he lost any sense of composure he had left.
“Just calm down!” I pleaded. “I don’t have your money! I never did!”
He swung the gun back to my dad. “That true? I’m putting a fucking bullet in whichever one of you is lying to me.”
“No. He has it. I swear!” My father shouted his cowardly lie with such conviction that I almost believed him.
I’d always known that Clay Page was a piece of shit. I’d hated him since I was old enough realize what a manipulative snake he truly was. But against my better judgment, with only the promise of twenty bucks as incentive, I’d ultimately gotten myself into that situation by not trusting my gut.
Never again.
And right then, my gut was screaming to stay true to what I had been doing since I’d entered the world eighteen years earlier. If I was going to die that night, I was going down fighting.
Slamming my head forward, I head-butted Frankie squarely in the nose. The gun fired over my shoulder, but at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less about where the bullet lodged—and that included in Clay Page’s head.
It had taken only three punches to the face before he fell to the ground, dragging me down with him. I heard the gun skitter across the pavement, and before I landed on top of him, I had planted another fist to his mouth. His head cracked hard against the concrete, but I didn’t let it deter me. He eventually stopped fighting back, but the only thing that snapped me out of it was the sound of sirens in the distance.
I stood up, covered in blood, and headed back to my truck. I spared one glance over my shoulder for the man who had brought me there that night. He was holding his stomach and rolling on the ground. He’d made it obvious that he didn’t care about me. And as I walked away, I was all too willing to return the favor.
After I’d hoisted myself back into the cab, my truck drove itself down the familiar roads. My father’s betrayal filtered through my brain with every turn. I had no idea where I was headed; after that night, I didn’t belong anywhere.
I hated my life and all that it was—but especially what it wasn’t.
God had already damned me to a future that would gradually fall silent. Teasing me with the present and taunting me with everything I would eventually lose. Even before my own fucking father had been willing to sign my death warrant just to save his own hide, I had already been drowning in the ocean of life. Every gasp of air was a struggle. Just as I would breach the surface, filling my lungs with hope and determination to make it through another day, I was forced back under—harder every time.
There was only one place where the world didn’t suck the life out of me. Regardless of how long I was there, seconds or hours, it offered me a reprieve and recharged my will.
I wanted to go home.
But home wasn’t where I laid my head every night. I didn’t actually live there at all, but it was the only place I felt alive. What I needed was the dream that only existed inside those four walls.
I needed her.
It had been six months since I’d last crawled out of that window. Six months since I’d watched her naked body take from me more than I’d ever thought I could offer.
Those same six months of living in the real world had destroyed me.
I needed the fantasy only she could provide.
But no matter what I dreamed, I knew she wouldn’t be there.
Fuck it. Pride aside. I’d go to her.
With a sharp U-turn over the median, I finally gave in to