Page 19 of Fight for You
"Cade?" she whimpers, stumbling toward me.
I reach out for her, a sob building in my throat. I grab her arm, but my hand goes right through her. Horror fills me as she turns to smoke and vanishes before my eyes.
"January!" I scream, sitting bolt upright in the bed. I leap to my feet and charge toward the door, desperate to get to her, desperate to save her. Fear pumps through me with each beat of my heart, so fucking much of it I can't breathe through it. I fling the bedroom door open and stumble out into the living room.
The window is shattered, but January isn’t here. There is no blood, no bullets.
Instead, a single brick is in the middle of my living room floor, shards of glass surrounding it.
"Fuck!" I shout, stumbling toward the couch. I drop heavily onto it, shoving my hair back from my face with shaking hands. My skin is soaked with sweat, my face damp with tears. I suck in air, but it doesn't ease the weight sitting on top of my chest. Nothing ever fucking eases that weight.
Nothing stops the nightmares, either. They're all different, yet nothing ever changes. In every single one, I can’t get to her quickly enough. I can't save her. No matter what I do, it always ends the same way…with her disappearing before my eyes.
I don't know how much more I can take.
"Suck it up," I growl, pushing myself to my feet. I did the crime. I'll do the time. That's my fucking mantra these days, the only thing that keeps me going.
I cross the room to the brick. A message is scrolled there in a jagged hand: "Tick Tock, motherfucker."
That stupid son of a bitch. I told him that he'd pay if he fucked with me. Either he didn’t hear me or he’s testing his fucking luck.
I jog back to my room and snatch up my phone, dialing Roman's number. He picks up on the first ring, sounding like he hasn’t been to sleep.
“I’m going to kill Kaleo," I growl into the phone. “As painfully as fucking possible.”
Roman is silent for a beat too long. "What did he do?”
"Sent a fucking wake-up call straight through my window.” Sighing deeply, I run a hand through my hair, gripping it hard at the roots. The pain helps ground me, keeping me from getting lost in the nightmare of January again.
"I'll handle it," Roman says after another beat of silence.
"No," I snap back, taking quick strides over to the brick and the glass shards scattered over my living room floor. I put the call on speaker and snap photos for evidence before I clean it up. "This is my fight."
“What are you going to do?”
“Burn his shit to the ground.”
"Literally or figuratively?"
"Both, probably. I haven't decided."
"Well, let me know if you need help from this end," he says, and I think he actually means it. If I asked for help destroying Kaleo's world, he'd be there, no questions asked.
I clear my throat when my chest pulses with something suspiciously like gratitude.
Fuck. I think I might actually like his overgrown ass. But he doesn't need a friend like me. Especially not if this goes south and Kaleo makes good on his threat to spill my secrets. The last thing Roman needs is to be tied to this shit.
“Will do,” I lie. “Do me a favor?”
“Name it.”
“Put a car outside the school where January works. And don’t feed me any bullshit about a School Resource Officer. If he makes a play for her, an SRO won’t stop him. I want one of your people on it, someone you trust.”
“You think he’ll go for her?”
“He’s spent my entire fucking life trying to get to me through her.” I laugh without humor. “Do I think he’ll try to go for her? Hell no. I know the stupid motherfucker will try.”
I just don’t know where or when. And that fucking nightmare has me scared shitless. But I don’t tell Roman that. It’s not his business. That’s my cross to carry.