Epoch (Transcend Duet #2)(54)

I … she cut his face. My eyes close briefly. Behind them I see a jagged piece of rusted metal clutched in a young girl’s shaky hand.

Her hand. My hand.

“You don’t have the balls, little girl,” he taunted her.

“I want to go home. Let me go and I won’t hurt you,” her voice trembles just like her hand.

Still, I don’t see her. I only see him. I see what she saw. But I don’t feel what she felt. The only thing I feel right now is my own fear.

“Griffin!” I slap my hand over my mouth as my own cry for help startles me. I don’t remember thinking I should yell for him, it just happened.

The already quiet bookstore becomes eerily silent.

Doug takes one step back, two steps back. A few people gather around with concern etched into their faces. My wide eyes shift from Doug to the brooding man stalking up behind him.

“Hey!” Doug holds up his hands in surrender as Griffin grabs the front of Doug’s jacket and backs him out of the store.

“Are you okay?” one of the employees asks me.

I nod.

I shake my head.

I nod again.

Without answering her with actual words, I take cautious steps toward the store’s entrance. Just as I grab for the door handle, it opens.

“Let’s go.” Griffin grabs my hand.

My coffee falls to the sidewalk, splattering everywhere. When I look down, I see a hunched-over Doug Mann struggling to his knees, buckled in half, grabbing his stomach. Griffin practically drags me to the truck, opens the door, lifts me inside like I can’t do it on my own, and stalks around to get in the driver’s side.

He starts the truck. “Are you okay?”

I fold my hands so tightly I can barely feel them.

Griffin pulls out of the parking lot. “Swayze, are you all right?” His voice raises a notch.

I nod. Why I nod when I don’t mean yes is a mystery. But I seem to do it a lot. My gaze darts around the truck until his reddened knuckle on his right hand snags my full attention.

He beat a man up for me. A murderer. What if Doug comes after Griffin?

“Swayze?” Griffin’s impatience snaps me out of my thoughts.

“Yes.”

“Yes, you’re fine?” He rests his hand on my leg.

I blink and tears surrender.

“Did he hurt you?”

No. Doug didn’t hurt me. I hurt him. I cut him. She cut him and I didn’t know it until tonight. These memories demand a voice. A second chance. “No,” I whisper.

“You’re crying. Don’t lie to me. Did he hurt you? Threaten you?”

Another headshake.

Griffin sighs, but it’s the heavy kind that’s from frustration, not relief.

I can’t help it. My tears are because he’s touching me, and I fear my days of feeling him touch me are numbered. Daisy’s life isn’t fading, it’s intensifying. She’s ruining my life, and I don’t know how to stop it.

When we pull in the driveway, I hop out before Griffin pulls to a complete stop.

“Swayz?”

I run into the house, making it to the toilet just in time to vomit. As I finish brushing the yuck from my mouth and rinsing with mouthwash, Griffin appears in the doorway.

“I’m sorry he got that close to you.”

I shake my head, wiping my mouth with the towel. “You can’t live by my side.”

“It won’t happen again.”

It will. It will happen again and again until Doug seizes the opportunity to get me alone or until I find a way to prove that he’s a murderer without having to die—again—in the process.

I step closer. He shifts to the side to let me past him. I don’t want past him. I just want him.

“Touch me,” I whisper, stepping closer until the hallway wall prevents him from retreating another step.

“I can’t.” Pain settles along his brow, seeping into the depths of his eyes.

“Why?” I rest my hands on his chest, making him flinch.

“Because I’m leaving soon, and I don’t think you’re coming with me. My parents are buying the house to rent out. They’ll rent it to you if you want to stay in it.”

Sometimes emotions hit with so much force it doesn’t even take a blink for the tears to pour out in relentless streams. “Don’t go.” I choke on two little words.

“Come with me.”

I curl my hands, grabbing his shirt. “Choose me … please.”

The pain on his face sinks deeper into his forehead. “You were never a choice. It’s always been you. But I asked you to marry me, so now it’s your turn … choose us.”

I drop my head to his chest, next to my clenched fists. Emotion racks my body, but he still doesn’t touch me. I see that jagged piece of metal. The shaky hand jerks out of control, slashing Doug’s face, erasing his sadistically taunting grin, replacing it with blood and rage.

I died. I died.

The bloodied dagger drops to the floor. She runs.

I run.

Out the door. Down the rotted steps. Weaving through the brush and trees.

“He killed me!” I cry.

“Her. Not you.” Griffin says with such control.

“H-he’s going … t-to do it a-again.”