Ruined

Chapter Nine

Jax

Fifteen minutes passed before I could even think about leaving the basement. The anger raging inside, provoking the demon, was borderline nuclear. I thought getting her to admit what happened out loud would help, but the truth was, it made things worse. For both of us.

The night on campus that Sam was attacked was the first time in years that I’d been so physically close to her. The demon went nuts, and once I was sure she was safe, I freaked and ran for the town line.

After hearing that the brakes had been cut, and seeing her reaction tonight, I was positive these accidents were connected. I imagined finding the bastard and tearing him apart, tiny piece by tiny piece. Not that this was the first time it’d crossed my mind. For days after the attack, I’d thought of nothing more. But in the end, I’d walked away, sure that there was no way to find the bastard responsible. The demon flashed images of a faceless man, beaten and broken a thousand different ways.

Something needed to be done.

When I was sure I had my anger in check, I left the cellar and surveyed the main room. Sam was back at the bar, fake smile firmly in place. Her colors were a mix of gray and red, but also the deep blue of sadness. It hurt to see her in pain, but in a twisted way, it was easier. Knowing that I’d caused that pain would make it easier to leave. Justified.

She was talking to a black woman with blond dreadlocks, and a tall man who kept stealing subtle glances down her low-cut shirt. If he didn’t back the fuck off soon, there was a good chance I’d cross the room and kick his teeth in.

From the smell of it, the club was mostly human, although there was a faint trace of a demon or two. Each one had its own unique scent. A slight variation of sulfur and what I found similar to burning motor oil. It wasn’t surprising to find some here.

I hovered by a table on the other end of the room. The place was almost empty and they were bound to boot me any minute. Still, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Sam. The distinct swirl of gray that surrounded her was like a black cloud hanging over her head. I could taste it from across the club, the sticky sweetness of her fear.

How many nights had I woken to find her sitting on the balcony outside her room in the middle of the night when we were younger. Nightmares. They were always the same—someone attacking her. We sat across from each other for hours, until the sun came up. Sometimes we talked. Other times we just watched the stars. Now, if I was right, she was reliving that nightmare in a very real way.

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 fucking 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.”

By the subtle nod of her head, I could tell she’d expected as much, but the pain was still there. In her eyes and in her colors. Deep blue. In the way her breath hitched and her eyes glistened. Sam took a deep breath. “Then do it.”

“Huh?”

She pushed against me, stopping a few inches from my lips. “Kiss me good-bye.”

My gaze dropped to her mouth, lips ruby-tinted and inviting. Shit…

Inside, the demon rumbled, but instead of the usual images it fed me—blood, violence, and rage—it showed something else. A flash of the kiss the night I left. Then, another of the one at the bottom of the lake. It wanted me to kiss Sam. The want fanned into something stronger. Need. It needed me to kiss Sam.

So I did.

It wasn’t a slow, sweet kiss. It was the dive-right-in-before-you-lose-your-fucking-nerve kind. Arms winding around her waist, I pulled her close and covered her mouth with mine. Soft, warm, and eager, she tasted faintly of vodka and cherries. It was sensation overload. A veritable shock to my system. I was a lightning rod in a hurricane. Pushed to the brink, but happy, because it’s where I was meant to be. Always riding the line between pleasure and pain.

This was need. A primal, dark, animalistic force that screamed in every one of my limbs. Being here with her now, after having been away for so long, made me desperate to take as much of her as I could. Devour what I could get and savor it.

I ground my hips against her, groaning into her mouth when the sensation threatened to send me crashing over the edge. She gasped and pushed back, riding the high as eagerly as I was. There was nothing gentle here. Nothing chaste. The moment was about something forbidden and raw. The curse had taken my life from me, but I wasn’t the only one. It destroyed everyone it touched. Breaking and shattering until there was nothing left but emptiness and anger.

Sam’s fingers clutched my shoulders, digging into skin like she was trying to keep me there forever. The energy radiating from her was a humming vibration setting every part of my body on fire. I tasted her sadness and regret, and the pain she’d felt for every day I’d been gone. Breathing deep, I took it in, giving the thing inside what it craved and easing some of my pain. It drove the demon crazy. The monster scratched and writhed to get a bigger taste. I pushed it back.

She couldn’t feel the emotion like I could, but I wanted to make sure she understood what I was unable to put into words.

That I missed her.

My lips moved with hers as I roughly grabbed either side of her face. Sliding my hands back, my fingers tangled through her long hair, then settled to cradle the back of her head to keep it away from the brick wall. A contented sigh rose in her throat at the contact. It was the most fragile, delicate sound I’d ever heard and it drove me crazy.

That she was the single most important thing to me…

She deepened the kiss, rising up onto her toes and licking at my bottom lip. Her cheeks were warm and wet, tears falling freely now. The debris of the broken past between us momentarily washed away.

That everything I was doing was to keep her safe…

We were approaching the danger zone. The demon, restless and itching for the surface, pushed harder. It flashed a succession of images, all variations of Sam, naked beneath me and moaning my name. Breath ragged, I grabbed her arms and pinned them above her head.

“Oh my—” Her voice cut off as she arched violently into me, ending in a desperate whimper that almost made me come right then and there. The fire blazed between us, raw and dangerous, and it was only when my fingers moved to slip beneath her skirt and remove the satiny barrier between us that I was able to stop and pull away.

The ache that had plagued me for the better part of the day was quickly building toward blinding pressure. Pressure that would only be released by feeding the demon. I needed more than the tiny bits of the anger, lust, and sadness I’d pulled from her. I needed something bigger. Something darker.

Sam stared. From the thick mist of orange lust swirling around her head and shoulders, it seemed like she’d push forward again, but to my relief—and disappointment—she didn’t. The spark in her eyes dimmed, and she moved sideways along the wall and toward the door, breath coming in jagged, uneven pulls.

When she spoke, her voice was low and sad. The anger was gone, replaced by nothing short of devastation. Despite the fact that we’d both wanted it, that kiss had been a mistake. As big a mistake as the one in the woods three years ago. “Now that was a good-bye.”

Fuck. I’d come out here to get closer to finding out who was trying to run her down, and instead I’d driven the space between us wider.

“Have a nice life, Jax.” She slipped back into the club, and even though every instinct screamed for me to follow, the thing inside prevented it. I was on fire. The demon’s need left me an exposed nerve, raw and bleeding. Taking from her had only further ignited the monster’s hunger. If I didn’t feed it something violent soon, it would take matters into its own hands. Or, rather, my hands.

I stumbled around the back corner of the building. Kissing Sam made the demon hungrier. My elation at being so close to her was a drain on the thing. I’d known better, and yet I’d done it anyway. Now someone else had to pay the price. Violence. The demon would take what it needed from some poor bastard and leave me stuffing back the guilt.

Sucking in a breath, I held it, trying to zero in on the strongest source of emotion. There was a banquet of lust and greed in the area, still lingering around the club, but something else caught my attention. A sweet scent that made the demon go wild with anticipation. It was coming from the east side of the building.

Twelve feet. Nine feet. Six. Four…

In the alley around the club, two men stood over another. The one on the ground was curled in a ball, unmoving, as his attackers kicked him and laughed. The demon rumbled, flashing nondescript images of blood and gore. This was the part I hated. It was also the part that the sickest side of me loved. Letting the hunger propel me, I started down the alley.

“What the fuck do you want, man?” the taller of the two snapped as I approached. The man squared his shoulders and puffed out his chest in an attempt to scare me off. Silly human. Arrogance rolled off the man in thick yellow waves. They mingled with the crimson ones, swirling together just above his head in an intoxicating combination that had the demon inside going crazy.

“This ain’t your concern. Move it along,” the other snapped. He, at least, had the intelligence to back away. The waves wafting from him were gray in color and reeked of fear.

I stopped a few feet away. The demon’s excitement hummed through my body as it flashed another image. Bloody and broken men.

Satisfaction—and a temporary peace—was within my grasp, but a sound shattered my concentration, forcing me to stop shy of following through. A far-off noise. The softest whisper of a plea for help. Sam.

I whirled around toward the club and held my breath, listening for the direction it’d come from. She was nowhere near the building; the sound echoed north slightly. The woods. She was in the woods.

The prey, so close at hand, was forgotten. The noise my boots made as they pounded the asphalt echoed like a bullhorn inside my head. Back around the building. Through the parking lot and across the street. A horn blared, bright lights zooming toward me. I jumped, kicking my feet up and pivoting so that my hip skimmed the hood. I landed gracefully on the other side, clearing traffic, as another sound came, this one from deeper in the woods. A single name called in desperation.

My name.

I followed the sound she made, stomping through the branches and dead leaves, and caught up to her as she changed direction, moving toward the cliffs. The wind kicked up, carrying the unexpected scent of sulfur. Demons? Two of them. And Sam.

One turned, wearing the guise of a tall man, letting go of her and stepping into my path, as the other continued. Blinded by anger, I collided with the other demon, sending us both careering into a nearby pine. We crashed into the trunk with jarring force.

I recovered, backing away as the other demon did the same. Stocky with a buzz cut, its individual smell was more potent than others I’d come across. More vile. It coated the back of my throat like foul syrup, nearly kicking in my gag reflex.

It smiled and snapped its teeth. In a voice that held the slightest rasp, it said, “Pathetic thing. You don’t possess the strength to take what’s not yours.”

The demon inside me scrambled with nearly blinding force to take control, and it was only as I lunged forward, aiming for the enemy’s neck, that it calmed a little. Normally I would have dragged it out, let the thing inside savor the violence, but there was no time to lose. A quick jab, and the other demon clutched its throat and went down hard, sputtering and gasping for air. I didn’t wait to finish it off.

The other one—also a demon from the smell of it—was just approaching the cliff with Sam when I caught up to them. The blond’s voice was cold and his eyes dead. “Turn around and walk back the way you came.”

“Jax…?” Sam’s voice didn’t wobble. She didn’t cower or cry. She was scared. Terrified. I could see my own emotion too, crimson rage leaking all around, calling to the demon. It bled into the air, haze drifting around my head like a miasma.

The demon moved. A twitch, really. But it was enough to spur me into action. Pushing forward, I sprinted toward them. Toward the edge of the cliff.

I was a foot away when the other demon brought its elbow back. It connected with Sam’s shoulder, sending her off balance.

She tumbled over the edge.

I jumped.