Damned by Damned

Author:Damned [Damned]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“You’re sure this is the place?” Ty asked. “You don’t have a key hidden around here?”

“Where could I hide a key?” she asked, as she leaned against the railing behind him, watching as he picked the lock of the apartment door. Faint doubt filtered through her. Was this the right number? She had so many missing or blurred sections of her life, thanks to alcohol, drugs and all the damned voices in her head.

She fisted her hands against the wood, stilling their trembling. She could have used the Vicodin now, to settle her nerves, but the little pills had gone up in the fire, the way they almost had.

She drew in a deep breath. She didn’t need drugs or alcohol; she didn’t want to numb herself and black out. She wanted to remember. She had to.

Other numbers, doors and places drifted through her mind. Dorm rooms. Campus apartments. This was an off-campus development, a ten-unit apartment building perched on the edge of a deep ravine. Beyond the outside second-story walkway on which they stood, trees swayed in a brisk night breeze. Even with the fresh air, all she smelled was the acrid smoke from the house fire embedded deep in her hair and skin, burned in her nostrils.

She wrinkled her nose, longing for a hot shower, a soft bed…and all those missing pieces of her memory. “I’m sorry I don’t have the key,” she said as Ty continued to slide his tools into the lock.

“Me, too,” he muttered around the metal rod he clenched between his teeth while he used other ones to work the tumblers of the deadbolt.

“You don’t think anyone’s in there?” she asked, nerves fluttering through her stomach. Her memories were so jumbled, how could she trust any of them?

“We knocked,” Ty reminded her.

And no one had answered. Yet how could she have afforded such an apartment on her own? “I must have had a roommate….”

Ty turned, glancing over his broad shoulder at her. Soot streaked his face. With a lift of that scarred eyebrow, he asked a question. A man?

She’d never really dated a man. She knew that now, after being with him. She’d only dated boys.

If they found the charm inside, he’d drop the little crescent moon and her off to her sisters. Would he walk away then, his job done?

He didn’t want to care about her. About anyone. He didn’t want to need anyone. She drew in a shaky breath. He was strong, far stronger than she’d ever been. With his will and determination, she didn’t have to read his mind to know what he would do. He would walk away.

She didn’t need the drugs and alcohol anymore, but she feared she needed him. Too much.

The lock clicked and the doorknob turned beneath Ty’s hand. She jerked away from the railing to stand close behind him, her hands clenching the sooty cotton of his T-shirt. “You did it!”

“Let me go in alone,” he said.

Not the way he had at his house, to deal with old memories under the guise of securing the premises.

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