SIX (25 page)

It will always be her grave.

My body begins to shake as my heart slows, then speeds up in my chest.

My lungs squeeze and restrict my breathing.

“Oh fuck. Breathe, Mist. Jude!” Lucky shouts.

Arms guide me to a seat and a bag is placed at my nose and mouth.

“Breathe into this, sweetheart. It’s a panic attack. You’ll be fine.”

My stomach fizzes and contracts, bringing up my breakfast.

Water is handed to me. “Take small sips.”

“How could this happen?” I weep.

“She was a troubled woman,” Jude consoles me.

“Why can’t the police stop this from happening?”

“Suicide is not something we can prevent.”

The lump in my throat is too big and my words sound strangled.

“Not suicide. These gangs, their crime.”

His brow creases. “Witnesses are the biggest reason. No one dares to come forward out of fear.”

“Then just stop letting gangs form,” I bite out, angry at the system, angry at the men who did this to her, angry at the world, but most of all, crushed for Six.

“There is no easy way to stop gangs from forming, or stopping ones that already exist. The underlying conditions that lead to gangs are complex and if we crack down and arrest key members, the gangs just recruit more. The crackdowns can temporarily lower gang crime in a specific area, but they just move to a new turf.”

“So they can just go around raping women without getting punished?”

“We’re bound by laws, Misty. We need evidence and witnesses. Unfortunately, we’re lacking in both.”

“It’s not fair.”

“You’re right, it’s not. Believe me, it’s just as frustrating for us. The shit we have to see and the knowledge we have, but not having enough evidence to back it up…we have to let people go knowing they’re out there free to hurt again.”

“How do you do it?”

“With a strong stomach, will, and a belief that karma will get them in the end.”

“You know he’ll go after them. He’s their karma, Jude, and he will lose himself to the hatred and anger. We may never get him back.”

He rubs my shoulder. “Just needs to cool off and grieve. You will help him move past this.”

He’s deluded if he thinks that, or just turning the other cheek so he doesn’t have to stop him.

“They’ve taken her now,” Parker informs me with red, bloodshot eyes as she walks into the shop.

She offered to stay upstairs until they recovered Haley’s body.

“They gave me a number to call for the clean-up.” She breaks down, covering her mouth and falling into the chair next to me.

I cradle her head into my lap and cry with her.

“Where do you think he went?” Parker asks once she finds her composure.

My hands shake from the fear of not knowing the answer to that question while I pray he doesn’t do anything reckless.

The door to the tattoo shop bursts open, making everyone jump.

Max, dishevelled and bleeding from the nose and mouth, stumbles through it. “Where is she?” he demands, anxiety heightened in his voice.

“She’s gone, Max. What happened to you?” I implore, trying to get him to sit.

He shakes me off and darts for the stairs to the apartment.

“Should I stop him?” Lucky asks, conflicted.

“No,” I answer, following Max up the stairs.

I find him in the doorway of my bedroom where a few nights before we were living, breathing, and feeling euphoric.

Now it’s a solemn pit of death and destruction.

His knees buckle and he vomits on the floor. Rubbing his back, I try to keep my eyes from scanning the crimson stains.

“She was my friend. All I wanted was to help her move on. She understood me. I’m not what he says I am. He’s lost his fucking mind,” he spits.

I stroke my hand through his hair and let him cry while coming to terms with what took place today.

I’ve never seen anyone look so defeated in my entire life.

He’s been pushed over the edge. His mind is in overdrive and seeking answers—revenge.

“There will be no coming back from this if you look for vengeance, Six,” I tell the man wearing the face of the man I love.

He arrived back here an hour ago, collected a duffle bag from a safe I didn’t even know existed in the office floor, and began washing dried blood off his arms and hands in the kitchen sink, scaring the shit out of Parker.

He’s now standing mute, his body moving and heaving like a beast getting ready to pounce.

“Maybe I don’t want to come back.

Maybe I’m not worth saving. Nothing can stop me from getting Haley’s retribution. I won’t choose you, so don’t ask me to.”

His words saturate me in acid, burning through to the marrow, taking everything I am.

You can’t fix someone this broken, this determined, and I won’t beg him to stay. It’s too painful to see him so destroyed and I’m scared to get close only to be pushed away. I’m confused and hurting, but that makes me selfish.

“You’ve never said much about what happened to her.

Maybe I could understand it better if you explained it to me with your own words.

Maybe I can understand your reasons for leaving everything behind and going on a suicide mission?” I ask, trying to keep the pleading out of my tone.

If he voices everything eating away at him, maybe he can find a way to heal.

“Isn’t causing her to shoot herself in front of me enough of a reason?” he bellows, and a piece of my soul fades.

“I won’t let you push me away. I love you,” I whisper into the air, the vulnerable part of me praying it doesn’t reach his ears.

“Love?” he questions, a shine in his eyes that triggers my pulse to pause.

“Three things I can tell you about love, Mist.”

He strides forward, reaching for me.

His palm brushes so delicately across my cheek, it’s almost like I’m dreaming his touch.

“One, love comes at a price. Two, there is always a victim who pays it.” His hand drops as he steps back, all the warmth of his presence abandoning me.

“Three, don’t be that victim.”

“Don’t do this. Please, don’t do this,” I beg, despite promising myself I wouldn’t, but I’m going to die if he leaves.

He’s throwing himself to the wolves and if they kill him, my soul will die with him.

Every molecule inside me screams out for him to hold me—to just hold on to me for strength until his pain eases.

“I love you. I love you.” I cling to his hand as he tries to pull away.

“Don’t love me.”

“It’s too late for me. When I can’t hear your heart beating, it means you’re too far away from me. My head, heart, soul—all of me is wrapped up in you.” Tears stream down my cheeks in waves and I hate the turmoil inside my chest—the helpless notion of knowing it will always be there if he abandons me.

“How, why?” He shakes his head, his face crumbling in confusion.

How can he not know how incredible he is? Before him, I was just waiting for my instincts to become sharper to help me seek out the magic this world has to offer, but he was that magic.

“Love knows no reason, no sin. It doesn’t see or hear, it just is,” I breathe, dumbfounded he can’t see how much I adore him—all of him, the monsters as well.

“You say you love me, but you haven’t even seen the real me. You haven’t even scratched the fucking surface. When you do finally see who I truly am, how long will your love last then?”

Tears build again in my eyes, threatening to spill over and stain my cheeks. Lifting my shoulders in defeat, I push a breath of air past my lips.

“Until the moon stops shining above you and the sun ceases to rise from beneath, and even then, in all that darkness…I’ll still love you. How can you not see, not know, there’s nothing you can do, tell me, or be responsible for that would stop me from loving you. I’ll follow you into hell.”

The quake vibrating over him gives me hope that he’s feeling how powerful our love is.

“I’ll go with you,” I state.

“Never,” he growls. “And I can’t stay. I can’t love you,” he demands, but there’s a glaze in his eyes that tells me otherwise.

The weight of his misery is like hands around my throat, choking me. Everything we’ve built is crumbling like an avalanche and I’m buried beneath, gasping for air—gasping for life.

The burden of loving him is suffocating me in ice.

“Can’t or won’t?” I choke.

“Does it matter? I don’t fucking love you. Stop begging for something that just isn’t there,” he roars, throwing his hands in the air.

“I don’t love you! Look at me, how many times do I have to say it before you believe me? Can you see it in me?” he taunts.

“I guess not.” Defeated, my soul disintegrating into nothing but ash, I grab my coat and muster the strength to move my legs and leave the bar—leave him.

I can’t breathe.

Everything is tight in my chest.

My world just left broken and I’m choking on every word left unspoken.

She will never know how much I love her.

It’s physically painful, heartbreak.

The weight crushing you from the inside out, fragmenting your heart, altering you forever.

I never stood a chance of knowing her and not falling in love, and now, just when I finally thought I had a chance at redemption, old demons came knocking and obliterated my world once more.

“Six, what the fuck is happening?” Lucky asks with Parker huddled at his back.

I didn’t even notice they were here.

“I need you to look after things,” I tell him, going to the register and taking a couple hundred bucks for gas.

I need to keep moving to stop myself from falling apart.

“When she’s ready, Parker, help Misty move on from this,” I ask on a plea, standing to face her.

“Where are you going?” Lucky asks, his tone anxious as he eats the space between us and stops a few feet from me.

His arms fold, then unfold, and he worries his earlobe with his fingers, rubbing it over and over.

“I have some errands to run.” I try to sound casual.

They don’t need to be worrying about me. I grab the bag up and brush past him.