Ruined

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jax

When I came to, I was scrunched up on the floor, leaning against the wall across from the couch.

“Jax?” Sam twisted her head to the left an inch. She was still lying on the couch. “Is that you?”

It took a moment to find my voice. My throat was dry and burned like I’d been yelling for hours. “Are you all right?” The movie ended long ago and had circled back around to the start menu. I wanted to ask her how long I’d been asleep, but there was a knock at the front door. A beam of sunlight shone through the window. Morning. Fuck. It was morning already. I climbed to my feet and crossed the room, feeling guilty that Sam had gotten stuck on the couch, half-naked, bound. “Did Heckle call?”

She rolled to the side and struggled to sit up. “Phone didn’t ring.”

“Did you fall asleep?” I asked, helping her off the couch. There were angry red marks, indentations from the cuffs, on both her wrists, and she seemed to be moving slow. Like she was stiff. Her clothes were askew, and I averted my eyes until she turned, feeling a spark of lust festering beneath the surface.

Sam stood with her back to me. “I dozed off for a little while, but it was uneventful. Unlock these so I can see who’s at the door?”

I slipped the key from my pocket and unlocked the cuffs. They fell to the floor with a clatter. “Really? Didn’t you learn anything the other night?”

She rolled her eyes and pulled on the sweatshirt that was draped over the back of the couch as the door jingled, then opened. “I find it hard to believe the demons are now using keys to get inside.”

A second later Chase stood in the doorway with a tray of coffee and a brown paper bag from Musso’s bagel shop. “Hey. Careful,” Sam said, stepping over to peer into the bag. “An everything bagel with grape jelly. The breakfast of non-champions. A girl could get used to this.”

My brother winked and stepped inside. “Last time I saw you, you were having a rough night. I wanted to check in.” Chase’s gaze fell on me. He looked disappointed. “Apparently you’re fine.”

“Chase,” I replied, eyes narrow.

“Jax,” he responded coolly.

Sam tensed, like she was ready to jump between us if needed.

“Didn’t know you were here.” Chase squared his shoulders and stepped away from the door.

The demon shifted, anticipating violence. I pushed it down. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to check in on Rick. Plus, I got Sam’s voice mail. I knew she was here, figured I’d bring breakfast. What are you doing here? Is it such a good idea?”

“She knows everything,” I said. “Our family. The demon. All of it.”

Judging by the expression on Chase’s face, the confession threw him for a loop, but he recovered quickly and turned to Sam. “Even after finding out the truth, you’re still hanging around him? What the hell is wrong with you, Samantha?”

“Careful, Chase. You sound a little jealous.” I came around the couch.

Chase squared his shoulders. “Jealous of what? You?” He took a step forward. “You really don’t see how stupid that sounds?”

I tensed. Azirak wanted to lunge at my brother, raging to feel bones snap beneath his fingers, but I resisted—barely—and flashed him a knowing smile. “You want her but she doesn’t want you. Burns your ass, doesn’t it?”

“Okay,” Sam said, stepping between us. Leave it to her to play peacemaker. “Knock it off.”

I ignored her and stepped forward. “Must really piss you the hell off that she’s, what, the one girl in Harlow who hasn’t blown you?”

“Whoa,” Sam said as color fanned to life in her cheeks. “Could we please focus—”

Chase laughed. “Putting a lot on assumption, big brother.” He leaned forward and winked. “Who says she hasn’t? Maybe I’ve been in those pants already.”

Sam turned an impressive shade of red. “Oh my God. No one in this room has been in my damn pants but me.”

We whirled around to stare at her.

“Perverts.” She rolled her eyes and said to Chase, “Something happened at school.”

“Sammy,” I warned, taking a step toward her. Involving my brother in this was a bad idea.

She kept talking. “I was attacked.”

Chase stared. Face pale, his eyes settled on me. “Attacked? By who?”

“By what,” Sam corrected.

Wonderful. Just what I needed. “It was a demon.”

Chase’s face turned scarlet. He stalked the rest of the room, stopping inches from me. The accusation in his eyes was plain as day. “Why the hell would a demon attack her, Jax?”

Azirak roared. It flashed a barrage of images. A million different ways that it could kill Chase right then and there. Snapping his neck. Hitting him at just the right angle to send fragments of his nose shooting into his brain. Grabbing the pen that sat inches away, on the coffee table, and jamming it into the hollow of his throat.

I pushed the thoughts from my head. It would probably upset Sam if I ripped Chase to shreds right here on Kelly’s living room floor. “Back away from me before I rip your throat out.” Thankfully, he did as told. “As for why Sam was attacked, it was to get to me.”

“Get to you? Why?”

“Not really clear on that part, and really, it doesn’t matter.”

Chase slammed a fist against the small table by the door.”Like hell it doesn’t—”

“There are bigger issues to deal with. When she was attacked, this thing linked to her. If it gets hurt, she gets hurt. If it dies, she dies.”

“Then we break this link.” Chase turned to Sam, and the expression on his face, unadulterated fear and concern, pissed me off. Suddenly the time he’d gotten to spend with her over the last three years was the only thing I could think about.

“We’re working on that, but we don’t even know who the demon is,” I said as evenly as possible.

“Assuming it matters?”

I clenched his jaw and silently counted to ten. He was still looking at Sam. “It matters,” I said coolly.

Chase was oblivious to my near meltdown. “The attack happened at Huntington, right? Let me do some poking around. I know a lot of people. Let me see what I can find out. Maybe someone saw something.”

“Suit yourself.” It’s not like he’d find anything. Sam said the police were no help, and if everyone at the party had been drinking, the likelihood of someone having witnessed anything helpful was slim.

Chase nodded and started toward the door. Stopping for a moment, he turned to me. “Keep her safe.”

Sam had been trying to get me talking since we hit the interstate. While Chase was off chasing his tail, we decided to move on plan B. Sadie Gray. If we got Havat his stone, he’d tell us the name of the demon that’d fed off Sam.

She asked, “Will you still leave? After all this is over?”

“For everyone’s sake, yeah.”

I could see her face from the corner of my eye. Disappointed. Somewhere deep down I hated that she felt that way, but a larger part was glad. If she begged me to stay, there was a good chance I’d consider it. “Where will you go?”

“Nowhere particular. I try not to stay in one place too long.”

“So you move around a lot? Where have you been?”

“All over, really. Most of the fifty states. Parts of Canada. Even Australia for a few months.”

“Why? I mean, why bounce around?”

“Is there a point to all this?” I snapped, gripping the wheel tighter. The more she talked, the more the deeper feelings fought for attention.

“Just trying to make conversation.”

“Well, don’t, okay? No point in making this harder on yourself than it has to be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Why did she keep pushing? Why the hell would anyone in their right mind dig themselves in deeper with someone like me? “Pretty sure we went over this earlier and I’m not sure why you think it might have changed.”

Her jaw dropped. In that moment, I was thankful to be behind the wheel instead of her.

“Know what I think?”

“No,” I responded, even though she’d tell me anyway.

“I think you’re using this thing as an excuse to run away.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it, stunned. “Weren’t you listening when I told you what I wanted to do to my brother? Did you see what I did to those men in the field?”

“They weren’t men, though.”

Now she chose logic? Great fucking timing. “Your point?”

“My point is, you’ve been in town for days now and you haven’t really hurt Chase. You haven’t hurt me. And as for the non-men, they were trying to hurt us. You didn’t just go out and randomly attack someone on the street.”

“Actually,” I said. Either she was blocking out Gutierrez, or she had serious memory loss issues. “I did. You were there, or don’t you remember?”

“Technically, you saved lives. Didn’t you tell me he was dangerous?” She kicked at the dash. “Jesus, Jax. You keep trying to make yourself out to be the devil, when really, you’re just a guy dealing with a shitty hand. Get over it.”

Get over it? Was she fucking kidding? I was forced to live each day caught up in a storm of violence that there was no way to escape, and she tells me to get over it?

I wanted to yell. At her. At life. At fate. Instead, I laughed. “There aren’t many people who would ever have the nerve to say that to me.”

“Yeah, well I’ve seen you puke all over yourself. That’s bound to screw with your badass factor.”

We were quiet for a few minutes. I knew I should keep it that way, but as usual, Sam’s nearness wreaked havoc on my common sense. She was like an electric current that shorted out all my damn fuses. “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“What happened last night.” Even though my eyes were glued to the road, I could still see her stiffen. “At the house. With Azirak…”

She didn’t respond.

“I—we—” Fuck. Why the hell was this so damn hard? “The demon might have been in control, but I was there. I wouldn’t have let it hurt you.” I swallowed back the admission, but it came out anyway. “I liked it. I’m a fucking bastard, Sammy, but I liked it. It’s hard to be with you when I’m me, but when the demon takes over, there’s no pain. I’m still there, and I can see and feel everything. I almost wanted to let it…”

“To let it touch me,” she finished for me.

“I told you,” I said darkly. “I’m a fucking monster. I wanted you so bad that I almost didn’t care how I got you.”

“That’s what it meant,” she said, twisting in her seat. “When it said there was a way if you were willing.”

I refused to answer. Refused to even think about it. There wasn’t any way it would ever happen. Not like that. “What the hell do you want from me, exactly?”

“How about the truth?”

That pissed me off. “Truth? I’ve never lied to you. Except for the demon, I’ve never lied to you. In fact, you’re the only person I’ve never lied to.”

“You did,” she insisted. “You told me you loved me and that you would always have my back.”

Of course I loved her. Loved her so much that it was in danger of killing me. It was in danger of killing us. But I’d never told her how I felt. Sure, she knew I cared, but the L-word had never been spoken out loud.

“Trying to remember? Don’t bother.” She shifted back until she was facing forward. There was a cold edge to her voice. Hard and broken. It was almost enough to make me pull the car over. “It was the night before you left. The night before we kissed. We were in Rick’s living room, watching a movie. You were half-asleep.”

I should have been surprised, but I wasn’t. I’d loved Sam from the moment we met. Holding a large umbrella over her head as the priest said kind words beside her parents’ graves. We’d never spoken. Hadn’t even been introduced. Rick had gone to support his friend and neighbor, Kelly Merrick, whose brother and sister-in-law died in a tragic home invasion.

Standing beside Rick and Chase, I’d watched the girl with the long brown hair stand eerily still. She didn’t cry. Didn’t speak. Only stood there staring at the ground as her parents were lowered into the cold, wet earth. Even then, so early in my life, I saw pieces of myself mirrored in her eyes. Lost. Alone. Separated.

Ruined.

It was another one of those defining moments. I’d known, even then, that this girl would play a monumental role in my life. We’d grown up close. Inseparable, really. Friends. Partners in crime. It was that last step—love—that pushed me to leave her behind.

There was no stopping it. The words came tumbling out. “The night I kissed you—I almost killed Chase. That’s why I left, Sammy. I knew I was too dangerous.” I kept my eyes front and center, afraid to see the expression on her face. “I think I knew even back then that you were a trigger. Being with you, it made me happy. The demon doesn’t do happy. It needs despair and rage.”

“Jax—”

I kept going. Had to get this out before I lost the nerve. “Kissing you…it was the most amazing thing, but it hurt. The pain was unlike anything you can imagine. Physical, mental, emotional… But I could have sucked it up. I would have. For you. But when I left you that night, the demon was going nuts. I ended up standing over my brother’s bed with a blade. Everything became so clear. You’ve seen enough violence and death in your life. I won’t be the one exposing you to more—especially when it’s all my life is now.”

“You have no right to decide what I should and shouldn’t have in my life.”

“Maybe not—but it doesn’t change things. It won’t ever change things. I am leaving when we clear things up. Everyone I care about is at risk when I’m here.”

“Fine,” she snapped. “Then I’ll go with you. Not like you can stop me. I’ll just keep following you until you cave.”

I shook my head. “You’d never be able to follow me.”