Ruined (The Eternal Balance #1)(19)
People were heading for the door in groups. Two of the three bars had closed, Sam’s being one of them, and I watched from across the room as she gathered the garbage and headed for the exit. If I had any hope of ending this, I’d need details about the person who’d attacked her. She had to have seen something. Heard or smelled something. Even the smallest detail could be important. Just a few more questions and I’d leave her alone. If I could track the guy down and finish him off, I could be on my way and done with Harlow in a day or two tops.
She slipped out the door right before I reached it, and when I stepped into the cool night air, she was already flipping open the Dumpster lid. I was about to call out to her, but the sound of an engine roaring to life, followed by bright lights flooding the narrow alley, stopped me cold. Sam didn’t turn around. She never had the chance. The engine revved twice, then squealing tires filled the air as the car shot forward.
I crashed into her a second before the car collided with the corner of Dumpster—right where she’d been standing—and continued on without slowing. The clatter it made was drowned out by Sam’s startled gasp and her almost-deafening heartbeat as I crushed her to the brick wall.
My own heart thundered. She was so close. I could smell the night on her—the smoke and alcohol from the club—but also a scent that was all Sam. Sweet and distinct. It took a second to get the words out since the inside of my mouth was suddenly like the damn Sahara, but I finally backed away several inches and asked, “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. Not back and forth or up and down, but more in a circular motion. “Yes… No. Sort of.” A shaky sigh escaped her lips. “Wow. Someone needs to learn how to drive. That guy—”
“Someone just tried to run you down, Sammy,” I barked before she could get any further. She wasn’t glossing over it this time. “On purpose. I know about the other stuff that’s been going on, so don’t try to bullshit me.”
She kept her eyes down and said nothing.
“I’m never going to buy this shit you’re selling. Just let me help you. Please.”
Sam lifted her head. For a second she didn’t say anything, but it was all there in her eyes. Pain. Betrayal. Sadness. Even without the dizzying mix of color swirling around her shoulders it was obvious. “It isn’t your problem. Remember?” she asked quietly. She made a move to walk away, but hesitated, gaze lifting to meet mine. “I don’t get it, Jax. One minute we’re standing in the woods and you’re spilling your guts and spouting shit about it being you and me against the world. You kiss the crap out of me, then the next morning I’m waking up to Rick at our front door telling us you’ve left home.” She ran both hands through her long hair, then clapped her hands once. The sound echoed in the alleyway. “Boom. Just like that. No note. No phone call. No explanation. Not even to me.”
“I did what I had to do,” I said. “I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, and that you don’t understand, but I did what I did for you.”
“For me?”
“I don’t expect you to for—”
She hit me. Fist tight, Sam punched me in the jaw. The blow didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt good. Justified. I deserved it and then some. This was her chance to let it out.
“How dare you say it was for me,” she cried, shoving me hard in the chest. The waves of gray and blue turned red, swirling like a tornado. “It was for you. For your own selfish reasons.” She shoved harder, and the demon grew restless, excited by her outrage. “But whatever your reasons were, they were all for you and no one else.”
Maybe it was the demon, and maybe it was just my own temper, but I couldn’t stop myself. When she raised her hand to push me again, I caught it and held tight. Pushing her back, I said, “I’m not going to say this again, so listen carefully. There are things you don’t know—” She opened her mouth to interrupt, but I clamped a hand across. Always talking. Always interrupting. “Things you’ll never know. But it killed me to leave and if you think I haven’t felt guilty about it every f*cking day since, you’re delusional.”
She pried my hand lose and laughed. A broken, painful sound that touched me in places I didn’t want to go. “Guilty? Good. You should feel guilty. I would have never been on that sidewalk—at that stupid college—if you hadn’t left me behind. You don’t care about anyone—”
I grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her back to the wall again. “Enough!”
She stared, shocked.
“Like it or not, I did what I did because I had to. Not because I wanted to.” What the hell was it about this girl? She was a magnetic pull that seemed to suck away all common sense. Before I knew what I was doing, I brushed my thumb lightly across her cheek to wipe away a single tear.
She closed her eyes for a second, holding her breath and staying absolutely still. When she opened them, a lot of the red smoke dissipated. “Did you know? That night you left, when you kissed me, that it was good-bye?”
Fuck. Her words were like a scythe cutting me in half. If I’d known, I never would have kissed her. “No. It wasn’t supposed to be a kiss good-bye. It wasn’t supposed to be the end. I wanted it to be the beginning.”
“But it was the end, right?”
There were a million ways I wanted to respond. All variations of hell, no. “Right.”