Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(11)

I swallowed hard.

Yeah. Sometimes I scared myself, too.




At 3:40 a.m., I pulled into my parking spot at the back of the building Charlie owned.

On a sigh, I cut the engine and stepped from my car.

My attention barely drifted over the bike parked in the spot reserved for Apartment Two, and I hardly registered the car parked awkwardly behind it.

The mental exhaustion clinging to my bones didn’t allow me much thought other than the need to strip myself of these clothes and this mask of makeup so I could climb into the refuge of my bed.

I suppressed a groan when I heard the music pumping from Apartment Two as I drew closer, the lift of giggles and annoying female voices.

Awesome.

I had new obnoxious neighbors. Tonight just got better and better.

At least they never stayed since that apartment was used for short-term, weekly rentals.

No doubt, Charlie made a small fortune on those rentals, but he refused to rent my place out the same way. The day I’d come crawling into his bar desperate for a job without an address to put on my application, he’d sat me down and asked me the last time I’d eaten. When I couldn’t answer, he’d fed me then put me in his truck and brought me here.

This stranger had set me up and given me a home.

It was the day the man had rescued a small piece of my shattered heart. Restored a little bit of my faith in humanity.

I climbed the stairs, pulling at the railing to aid my ascent, my feet sore and my body weary.

I was letting all this shit get to me, and I couldn’t afford it.

I let myself into my dark apartment, kicked off my shoes at the door, and went directly to the bathroom to wash my face, then proceeded into my cozy room where I changed into a pair of sleep shorts and a tee before I flopped onto my plush, queen-sized bed with the pretty ornate metal headboard.

It was intended to exude comfort.

Instead I felt lost.

Hollow.

Alone.

With a glance to my earbuds on my nightstand, I hesitated. Why in the world after the night I’d had would I even consider torturing myself this way?

Apparently I was a masochist.

Sitting up against my headboard, I grabbed them, plugged them into my phone, and flipped into my music player. I went directly to my favorite Sunder album, the one that had the song I couldn’t help but listen to again and again. Typically, Lyrik was the one in the background, there only to accompany Sebastian.

But no.

This song was all Lyrik.

His voice was so different than the screaming, growling lyrics Sebastian was known for. Lyrik’s voice was deep and gravelly.

Yet somehow smooth.

Haunting and hypnotic.

It always made me feel as if I was being sucked into the song, mellower than their standard thrashing style, like a dark lullaby rocking me to sleep night after night.

I pressed the buds into my ears and let that voice wash over me, let it seep beneath my skin until it seemed as if the chords were played from somewhere within.

The first time I’d heard this song two years ago? I’d wondered what the man behind it was really like. If he actually was in the kind of pain the song bled. If the sorrow behind his voice was real. I wondered if he might feel the same way I did inside.

So full of regrets you didn’t know who you were anymore.

Somehow, I’d felt as if I knew that man. Intimately. Wholly. A bond shared between complete strangers.

That had been nothing more than a wicked dream.

Because Lyrik wasn’t anything like I’d imagined him to be.

Of course, at that time, I never believed we’d actually come face to face. Never thought he’d look at me and see something he wanted. Never thought he’d spark those old na?ve fantasies.

Tempt me and tease me and trip me.

I bet he’d laugh when he watched me fall.

Cruel.

Breathing in, I closed my eyes, praying for the exhaustion to drag me into sleep. But instead I found myself feeling antsy. More uncomfortable in my skin than I’d felt in a long, long time.

When I couldn’t force myself to sit still any longer, I slipped from beneath the covers and dropped to my knees in front of the chest at the base of my bed. Almost reluctantly, I lifted the lid, cautious of what waited inside.

I pulled out the black, leather-bound case. It felt heavy in my hands as I carried it to my bed and laid it on my crisscrossed legs.

It seemed like an hour passed while I just stared at it.

Finally, I conjured up enough courage to unzip the case and pull out the photos inside.

They were nothing controversial. Nothing obscene or secretive.

Just bright bursts of lightning slicing across each sheet.

There were hundreds of the black and white photos. Many had been photo-shopped with the splashes of colors I’d liked to add to them, changing the white strikes to purple and teal and any other color I could imagine, like colorful darts streaking through the sky and striking down against the parched ground.

These images? They represented me.

Before.

When I was so eager to look upon beauty. To chase it. To seek the thrill of being in danger. Putting myself in harm’s way to capture these absolutely awe-inspiring images.

That was when I believed the world was out there just waiting for me to capture everything it had to offer.

I’d taken my first picture of lightning when I was five years old. I’d stood at my grandpa’s side on our back porch while he pointed to the storm building over the mountains behind our house, explaining the stunning phenomenon.