Ruined

by Jus Accardo

  Just when I was sure it would abandon her, it gathered Sam in my arms, shielding her, and crashed through the glass, kicking hard for the surface.

  Chapter Four

  Sam

  Before I dared open my eyes, I moved a finger. One by one, each in turn, they did as commanded. Next came the toes. All ten piggies wiggled exactly as they had before. An arm here, a leg there, my limbs appeared to be attached and functioning properly.

  “Samantha?” asked a voice thick with concern. “Samantha, baby, are you awake?”

  Oh, God, no… Someone put me back in the river.

  The voice belonged to my aunt, and I made the decision to keep both eyes closed tight. No doubt the moment they opened, Kelly Merrick would be flinging disapproval like monkey shit at the zoo. The unsafe car—which she just happened to be right about; the decision to drop out of school; my less than snow-white past—she would have whored me off to Chase at fourteen if she could have legally gotten away with it. Everything in my life was subject to the older woman’s constant nagging.

  It was the main reason I’d applied to an out-of-town college. There’d never been any real interest in school for me. I was nineteen and had no idea what to do with my life. I had sketchy people skills, and no marketable hobbies. The only real talent I had came from my earlier years of troublemaking. I could pick a lock and hot-wire a car in record time, but the chances of turning that into a lucrative career that didn’t end in the pokey was pretty nil.

  As far as I was concerned, there was plenty of time to decide. Life right now should be about hitting up frat parties and pulling all-nighters ending by 7:00 a.m. at the local diner with a missing shoe and no memory of the evening. Living off mac and cheese and wearing flip-flops all winter. Proving to Aunt Kelly that I could stand alone. Huntington was supposed to be the path to finding myself and where I belonged in the world.

  Or, it had until I’d walked away from it all. Nowhere in my wildest fantasies had there been anything remotely resembling scenes from a B-movie horror flick.

  Lately disaster seemed to follow me around. There’d been a string of increasingly bad accidents since I’d turned tail and run from school, and my mind had been nudging the possibility that maybe there was something bigger going on. But this was an accident. The car was a piece of shit. Brakes failed—especially when you didn’t have the money to maintain them.

  “Are you happy? This is your fault,” Aunt Kelly spat at Jax. “You’ve always been a horrible driver. Disaster just follows you along wherever you go, doesn’t it?”

  “Kelly,” Chase said from somewhere to the right. He sounded tired and in need of caffeine. “Jax wasn’t—”

  “I’m responsible for global warming, too. Haven’t you heard?” Jax snapped. “I bet you could place me at the assassination of Lincoln if you tried hard enough. Oh. And I killed that stupid deer, too. What’s its name? Bambi?”

  Kelly gasped and I felt an internal eye roll coming on. The surprise over Jax’s response was nothing more than an act played by an old pro very much deserving of an Emmy. Where she viewed Chase as a saint—an exemplary specimen of a man that could do no wrong—Jax was the devil incarnate.

  “Do the authorities know you’ve come back to town?”

  Jax ignored her. “What’s the rabbit’s name? Humper?”

  Chase sighed. A sound like paper crumpling was followed by, “Thumper. The bunny’s name was Thumper, Jax.”

  “That’s right,” Jax snickered. “Thumper. Made excellent stew.”

  Kelly gasped again. Really, it was a wonder the woman didn’t pass out more often. “You are a menace. How many people will you harm while you’re in town?”

  I waited, sure he’d declare his innocence, but Jax remained silent.

  “The best thing you ever did was leave,” she continued, no doubt interpreting his silence as an admission of guilt. “Everyone’s life was better without you here!”

  Jax hadn’t done anything wrong—this time—other than being his not-so-charming self. There was no reason for Kelly to rip him to shreds for my mistake. They were standing over me bickering like five-year-olds. I’d almost just died, for Christ’s sake.

  I’d almost just died…

  Everything came crashing back and my heart began to pound. The car had gone over the edge and into the river. Under the river. A shiver ran through me and I could almost feel the icy water kissing my exposed skin again. No wonder Kelly was flipping out. She thought Jax was driving and had almost killed me.

  I pushed the terrifying thought aside and forced my eyes open. “I was driving.” If he wouldn’t come clean about his innocence, then I would. They’d been telling me to take the car in for service for months now. As with everything else, I kept putting it off.

  When my vision cleared, Kelly stood at the foot of the bed, arms folded with a typical scowl firmly in place.

  To the right of the bed, in the chair by the door, Chase sat with a coffee cup. He’d changed at some point. The jeans were gone, replaced by worn sweats and a white T-shirt. It was the most disheveled I’d seen him look since the morning he was caught sneaking off Kiki Muller’s porch after prom night.

  “You’re nineteen, Sammy. I don’t think you owe her an explanation,” Jax said. He slouched in the corner, as far away from Chase as the room would allow, and when my eyes met his, those last moments in the car came flooding back with a vengeance. There was a flush of embarrassment and a rush of heat.

  I’d kissed him. Granted, I’d been sure we were about to die, sentenced to a watery grave, but still… How was I going to live this down?

  Wait…

  How was I able to live it down? Everything was so fuzzy. “The car was under water,” I said, eyeing Jax. “The doors were stuck. How did we get out?”

  He returned my glare, eyes narrowing so that only the slightest hint of gray was visible. I knew that look. A challenge. “Does it matter? Maybe I should put you back in? It’d give you an excuse to grope me again.”

  Aunt Kelly choked and Chase was instantly alert. “She groped you?”

  “Hell, yeah, she did.” Jax tapped his lips, then puckered up, blowing a kiss in my direction. “Laid one right on me.”

  I swallowed. “That’s not—”

  Chase balked. “How was it?”

  Seriously?

  Jax shrugged. “Eh. Definitely inexperienced.”

  This is not happening.

  “Is this true?” Aunt Kelly snapped. Her face was pale and she looked ready to drop.

  I glared at Jax. “Chase didn’t seem to have a problem with my kissing expertise.”

  My aunt went from livid to over the moon. “You kissed Chase?”

  “Annnnd getting back on track.” Chase grinned. He was watching Jax, who was positively seething on the other side of the room. Served him right.

  Jax seemed to pull it together and flashed a tight-lipped smile. “Consider the source, Sammy. Do you have any idea where those lips have been? They should come with a hazmat sticker”

  “Her name,” Aunt Kelly spat with a dramatic flip of her hair, “is Samantha. Sammy is something you’d name a puppy. Or—or a tool.”

  Jax nodded to his lap. “Of course it is. That’s what I named my tool.”

  “If you two keep going at it, I’m ringing the nurse to load me up with the biggest sedative they’ve got,” I said, pushing myself up into a sitting position.

  “So what happened?” Chase asked, pulling his chair next to the bed. He was every bit the troublemaker Jax was, but knew enough to filter his behavior, where his brother didn’t care what anyone thought. Because of that, he’d been dubbed the golden boy and Jax the bad seed.

  Aunt Kelly came behind him and clutched his shoulder as a justified smile creased her lips. I was so tempted to say something that ensured her hand’s removal—something shocking and unladylike—but settled for the simple truth. Verbal sparring with my aunt, while awesome, took more energy than I had at the moment.

  “
I think my brakes must have failed.” The memory of fruitlessly pumping the pedal as the car sped toward the river at breakneck speed sent an icy tremor up my spine. I was never driving that road again, even if it meant going an hour out of the way. Hell. I might never drive again. Period.

  But Aunt Kelly couldn’t know I was rattled. She’d insist on them keeping me here. Squaring my shoulders, I plastered on my game face and said, “Assuming they’re not going to keep me here for swallowing half the river, can we get the fuck out of Dodge? I’m beat.”

  “Samantha!” My aunt paled and clutched her chest. Cursing was something ladies didn’t do—especially in front of gentlemen. In that moment, I wanted to find an excuse to say “cock knocker” in front of the flawless Chase Flynn. That would really get her going.

  “Relax,” I said, throwing the covers aside. The room spun a little, but otherwise everything seemed fine. The sooner I got out of this sterile, bleach-scented environment and back to my nice cluttered apartment where coffee lived, the better. Hospitals gave me the creeps. Sliding from the bed, I planted both feet on the ground and felt a subtle updraft.

  “Cover yourself up!” Spreading her arms wide to shield me, Aunt Kelly whirled on Jax, who politely averted his gaze and turned to the door. His brother, on the other hand, made no attempt to hide his stare—which of course went unnoticed.

  I sighed and tugged the impractical hospital gown closed at the back.

  Jax stood. “I’ll find the doctor. See if we can’t get things moving along.”

  As Chase busied himself with trying to calm Aunt Kelly down, Jax turned. Our eyes met and the bottom dropped out from my belly. Whoosh. I was at the top of a roller coaster, just before the car plummeted over the edge. Excitement and fear so tightly wound together that they were one and the same. It was a dizzying rush that warmed my skin and made my head swim—in a good way—while wreaking havoc on my heartbeat. The missing spark in my life, the one I’d been chasing since the night he’d left…

  With the slightest nod of his head, he disappeared around the corner and my heartbeat evened. Not good…

  I wasn’t over Jax Flynn.

  Chapter Five

  Jax

  My bedroom was exactly the same as I’d left it three years ago. Hard-rock posters lined the walls, and the dartboard Rick had gotten me on my fourteenth birthday still hung above the bed, the last dart I’d ever thrown, a bull’s-eye, poking out from the center.

  I’d been at the window watching Sam pace the length of her old bedroom next door for the last hour. Instead of going home to her apartment, she let her aunt talk her into staying at the house for the night.

  She’d always hated the silence. The television was on in the background, a repeat of the press conference the police chief had given earlier about a series of murders by someone the press dubbed the Gentleman Stalker. A handful of girls had gone missing from Harlow and the surrounding towns recently and authorities were stumped. I’d heard about it, but hadn’t really followed the story.

  Sam ignored the news and stalked the floor of her old room. It was easy to see she didn’t want to be there. Every once in a while she would slide the fingers of her hand through her long brown hair, tug at the sides, then tilt her head back and sigh. Tufts of gray fear trailed behind as her heart hammered an erratic rhythm. Twice she’d reached for the phone. I’d listened as she dialed the first five digits of Rick’s number before slamming it back to the dresser and cursing softly.

  Another person would be curled in a ball, rocking themselves to sleep after what just happened. Not Sam. Even though she was shaken to the core, she put up a brave front. Alone in her room and away from prying eyes, she continued the ruse like there was no other choice. Like showing even the smallest hint of weakness would send reality crumbling down around her. She was the savior and never the victim.

  There was space between us—wood, plaster, and glass—but I heard every sound as clearly as if she were standing next to me. Every movement, the smell of the lake still on her skin, the subtle rub of her clothing as she moved across the room, everything was razor-edged and on the verge of driving me mad. I knew I should leave, but the only thing I wanted to do was hold her. Be there so she could let it out.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. If I didn’t get out of here before my brother showed up—which was inevitable—I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions. Or the demon’s. The monster, always so predictable, had pulled a 180 by saving Sam. I was grateful, but it was more incentive to get the fuck out of Dodge. I didn’t know what it might do next.

  Thinking I could breeze into town, see Rick, and leave without complications was ridiculous. Thankfully, it was something I could rectify. Grabbing my coat from the bed, I hurried down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  “Freeze, pal.”

  I stopped mid-stride, a few inches from the door. So fucking close. I slowly turned to face my uncle. “You promised. You swore they wouldn’t be here, Rick.” A knot of anger formed deep in my chest. My control had improved with age, but that didn’t mean I wanted to wave my biggest trigger in front of the demon’s face. “Are you trying to put me on America’s Most Wanted? Cause that’s what’s going to happen. The shit I wanna do to my brother is sure to get me on the ten o’clock news.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have encouraged you to stay away. The last I heard from Kelly, Samantha was supposed to be in school. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t even know she’d dropped out until Kelly called me on the way to the hospital. Apparently she’s been living on the other side of town for the last month.” Rick frowned and a pang of guilt needled me. Three years had aged him more than it should have. The lines on his face were deeper, his hair now thin and solid gray. But there were other things. Signs of decay.

  Cancer. The doctors had given him a month—possibly less.

  He alternated between leaning against the doorframe and using the old china cabinet to support his weight. The knickknacks inside were full of dust and still in the same spots as the night I’d left. “As far as Chase being in town, he found out you were coming home at the last minute and insisted on being here. I warned him to stay away, but you know your brother…”

  Of course I did. Stubborn, cocky, and invincible—or so he believed. He’d pushed me at every corner as we were growing up. Determined to prove he wasn’t in danger. He was wrong, though. My twin had no idea how close he’d come to death the night I left town. “Every time I see him, I imagine myself covered in his blood.” I smashed a fist into the wall next to him, and Rick flinched. The last thing I wanted to do was upset the old man, but he needed to understand that I couldn’t stay any longer. I couldn’t control the demon and its sick desire to end Chase’s life. “This thing inside me hates him. All it wants is to rip him apart.”

  When we were five years old, I pushed Chase down the basement stairs. That was the first time I got a taste of the demon’s hatred for him. The sound he made as his balance shifted. The distinct cracking of the bones in his left arm as he crashed down the concrete stairs. The surprisingly soft thud that filled the stairwell as his body fell still at the bottom. It was one of those defining moments in life. A span of six or seven seconds that I’d never, ever forget.

  The night I kissed Sam in the woods behind the house pushed things over the edge. It’d been the tipping point. The line. Those few moments with her—happiness like I’d never imagined—had driven the demon into an enraged frenzy. That kiss was what I’d wanted more than anything, as well as the single most regretful moment of my life. It’d changed everything. It’d changed me. Changed me so drastically that I’d found myself standing over my brother’s bed in the early morning hours with a kitchen knife in hand, at war with the demon inside. I’d won—barely—and did the only thing I could think of to spare the people I loved. I’d left.

  “The best thing I can do for you—for everyone—is get out of town. I wasn’t supposed to see Chase. I wasn’t supposed to see Sam… This has gott
en too complicated already.”

  Rick placed a hand on either side of my shoulders. He wobbled a little, but used me to steady himself. Seeing him like this tore me apart. He’d always been a rock. Now, he looked like a gentle breeze would knock him to the ground. “I want you here. You know that. But I think you’re right. I know how hard it is for you to see Sam. And your brother, well, that’s difficult on an entirely different level. He may think himself ten feet tall and bulletproof, but you and I know better. I’ll never forgive myself for telling you to leave, but—”

  Rick had been the one to talk me into leaving town in the first place. I’d only been seventeen at the time, but we both recognized the need for distance. After tearing myself away from Chase’s bedside that night, I ran straight to my uncle, who gave me a wad of cash and a gentle shove toward the door. The guilt had likely been eating at him ever since.

  “I can’t control this thing when he’s around. And Sam… She’s an entirely different issue for me.” I clasped a hand over his. It was so cold. “You didn’t let me down, Uncle Rick. You helped me do what was right for everyone.”

  “I sent a child onto the street on his own. What kind of a father does that?”

  “The kind that can make the hard choices. I owe you.”

  I’d never once questioned Rick’s motives. The old man loved me. There was never any doubt in my mind. But he loved Chase, too, and he’d done what was best to keep us both safe and sane.

  The demon flashed the encounter at the diner through my mind again, only with a slightly different ending. In this version I attacked Chase, ripping the still-beating heart from my brother’s chest as Sam stood by and cheered. At the completion of the morbid vision, the demon settled down again, content. Of course, the things that settled the demon had an opposite effect on me. They left me feeling edgy and sick. My muscles began to ache, signaling that the demon was ready to feed again. Not the scavenger bits of anger and fear, but true violence. “I need to leave. Chase will be here soon. I don’t want to take any chances…”