25. River

TWENTY-FIVE

RIVER

I felt her before I heard her. Felt her in the way the air suddenly turned volatile right before the door blew open. I was on my feet and rushing to the opening of my station, my heart leaping from my fucking chest when I saw her come stumbling in.

"Charleigh?" Her name ripped off my tongue, and the second it hit the air, she crumpled to the floor.

Face full of tears and terror radiating from her being.

I tore off my gloves and tossed them to the floor as I raced to her. I had my arms around her in a flash, panic searing me through at the sight of her like this.

"What happened? What's going on?"

Tried to make it soothing, but the words were shards as I tried to hold back the aggression that pounded through my veins.

I'd just texted her not five minutes before, and she'd been fine. Flirting with me the way we'd taken to doing.

And now she was falling apart in the middle of my shop.

Jagged, rasping cries ripped up her throat, and I curled my arms tighter around her as I pulled her against me. My mouth went to her temple. "It's okay, Charleigh. It's okay. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. "

She heaved over a sob, and she pressed her face into my neck.

I curled around her like I could be her shelter when I murmured, "Tell me what happened. Need you to tell me what's going on."

"I…I thought…I saw…"

"What did you see?"

"I—" It cracked as she shook.

She couldn't even get words to form around the panic that had her tongue tied, her heart racing mad, girl logged with horror and grief.

But I got enough from it that I rumbled, "Stay right here."

Otto had come in to get a piece worked on, and I tossed him a look where he stood in the doorway of my station.

Watch over her.

In understanding, he gave me a jut of his chin, and I turned and flew through the door and out onto the sidewalk that ran in front of my shop.

Sure she'd been running.

But this time she hadn't been running to flee, she'd been running from someone, and she'd come runnin' to me.

So fuckin' terrified she couldn't stand.

My eyes scanned the faces of the people who rambled by for any hint of depravity. Searching for the corrupt. I'd known it enough in my life that it wouldn't be difficult to sift out. Spot it in the rambling throng that rippled by.

I couldn't nail down anything amiss. Couldn't pinpoint one single person who was going to pay.

I could feel it, though.

Could feel it ride on the atmosphere, floating on the rays of warmth that filtered through the late afternoon day.

Evil.

The kind you could taste like an oil slick.

I moved in the direction of where I sensed it, shouldering through the crowd that was thicker at this time of day. Their grunts of annoyance and disapproval did nothing to slow me down.

And still, there was nothing there.

No hint or innuendo .

No phantom or shadow.

Whoever this fucker was had turned to vapor.

Frustrated, I roughed a palm over my face, and I cast one more vicious glance around before I gave up and stormed back down the walkway to my shop. Nearly pulled the door from its hinges when I tore it open.

Second I stepped back inside, I was slammed by her turmoil, a fucking tsunami that almost knocked me from my goddamn feet.

Fuck.

This woman possessed a power that could annihilate me.

She was still on the floor, though she was surrounded by Otto and the two other artists who were in the shop working today.

Each kneeling around her in a circle in an attempt to give her comfort.

I tore through them, gritting, "Everyone get the fuck back."

My heart ran jagged and my spirit staged an all-out assault.

A furor of protectiveness lined my insides in liquid steel.

Otto tossed me a wide-eyed who do we have to kill as he pushed to his feet, and I just sent him a look that promised we'd talk later as I pulled the girl from the ground and stood with her in my arms.

Charleigh felt too fucking light where she was pressed to my chest, her flesh burning into mine, though there was still something about her that made me feel like I bore the weight of the world as I swiveled on my heel and carried her through the lobby and down the hall that led to my office in the back.

She was quivering. Quivering so hard that each tremor rocked through me, and she gulped over these little sobs that she couldn't quite fully emit.

Each bottled and suppressed.

"I've got you, Charleigh. Shh, I've got you." I tried to soothe her as I moved, my boots thudding hard against the floor. "I've got you."

She needed to understand that as long as she was with me, she wasn't in danger.

I'd raze anything or anyone who dared to get close to her .

At my words, she only choked and cried harder, like my voice had been the hammer that had finally made all her fractured pieces crack.

Or maybe she was just letting go.

"I've got you," I promised again, muttering the truth against the crown of her head where she was tucked tight against me.

I angled to the side so I could get to the handle of the office door. I pushed it open and kicked it shut behind us to give her privacy.

I carried her over to my desk. The top was littered with papers, different sketches that I'd been working on, random ideas and notes and thoughts, and I swept them aside with my forearm before I carefully set her on the edge of it.

I didn't step back. I stayed close, an arm around her waist and the other up high on her back.

Refusing to let her go.

Couldn't have if I tried.

Not when I felt this overpowering need to hold her forever.

Keep her close.

From here to eternity.

And I had no fuckin' clue how she could make this mark on me, like she was the one who'd forever etched her soul somewhere on mine rather than the other way around.

I ran my hand from the back of her head and down her back.

At the contact, electricity crackled.

"Breathe, Charleigh. Just breathe. That's all you've got to do. Nothing else matters. Just breathe." I forced it out through the chaos that raged in the middle of me.

She hiccupped and wheezed, and I kept caressing down her back.

Softly.

Slowly.

Praying the placid strokes of my hand and the tranquil tone I was trying to coerce my voice into would cut through the anxiety attack that had gripped her.

"That's right, just breathe. You've got this. You've got this."

She finally inhaled deeply, fully inflating her lungs, and that was enough to have me shifting a little farther back so I could take her by the chin.

I gently prodded her to look up at me.

Though rather than letting me see, she threw her hands over her face.

Obstructing the beauty.

"You don't have to hide from me, Charleigh. I already see you."

She stayed that way for the longest moment, soft cries still getting loose, before she finally allowed me to pry her hands away.

The sight of her this way punched me in the gut. Gorgeous face stained with tears, cheeks red and chapped, cinnamon-flecked eyes swollen with desperation.

Another wave of protectiveness slammed me, limbs shaking with the violence I wanted to enact.

But I tucked it down, saving it for the motherfucker who I was going to hunt. The one I was going to end. And when I found him? I was going to do it slow. "Look at me, Charleigh. Look at me and know."

She tipped her face fully toward me, those eyes doing wild, wild things, crashing between old fears and the trust she'd given me.

"Tell me what you saw."

Her jaw trembled, and I brushed away the tear that streamed down her cheek with the pad of my thumb. "I…I thought someone was following me after I left work."

Aggression churned, but I forced myself to keep it cool. To show her I could be her rock. That she'd come to the right place.

"Who?"

Her head barely shook. "I never got a good look at him. I just…felt it. This…" Her eyes squeezed closed for a beat, and I knew exactly what she'd felt.

The same evil I'd scented in the air out on the sidewalk.

"I thought I was only being paranoid because that's something I do. I get paranoid and I run, even though I don't have any proof that anyone is even after me. But I just get this sense…"

Charleigh pressed the tips of all the fingers of her right hand to the center of her chest. "I get this sense right here that someone is watching me. And today when I did, I swore I saw someone duck behind one of the medical plaza buildings. I kept going, and when I looked behind me again, the same person was following me in the distance."

My teeth ground, and I itched to race back out the door. Track the bastard. But I didn't know who the fuck I was looking for.

"Would you be able to describe them?"

Sniffling, she shook her head. "No. It was a man, I'm pretty sure, and he was wearing a khaki jacket and brown pants, but other than that, he was too far away to make anything out."

"Would you recognize him if you saw him again?"

She blew a heavy strain of air through her nose. "I'm not sure."

"It wasn't your ex?" She'd already told me she didn't recognize the person, but my gut told me that's who it had to be.

Despair shook her head. "No. I think I would have known if it was him."

I wanted to demand his name. Didn't matter if it wasn't him. I knew he was responsible for her fear. Wanted to fuckin' gut him for whatever he'd done to her in the past.

She laughed a demoralized sound and turned her gaze away. "Maybe it was nothing and I was imagining it. It wouldn't be the first time."

I tugged her forward a fraction, leaving an inch of space separating us. My voice was a hushed roar as I muttered, "You and I both know it wasn't nothing , Charleigh. If you've been runnin' all this time, then you've been runnin' for a reason. You can trust me with that, too."

I dragged the pad of my thumb up over her cheek and gathered the glittering moisture. "There is no shame in fear, Charleigh. There's no shame in trying to protect yourself. You've been carrying this on your own for a long, long time, but you need to know that you don't have to do that any longer."

"I don't want to. I don't want to be scared any longer." She whispered it before she reached out and curled her fingers in my shirt, nails scraping through the thin fabric like the lick of flames.

This girl with the power to burn me to ash .

"I don't want to be this way any longer. I want to live, River. I just want to live."

In grief we must live.

"You are, Charleigh, you are. And I'm going to see to it that you continue to. That you don't have to live this life afraid. Promise you, I won't let you go until you're flying free. Until you're no longer looking over your shoulder. Until we're sure you're safe."

Issue was, I wasn't sure I was ever going to want to let her go. This thing she'd lit in me was something bigger—something more powerful—than I'd ever felt before.

I could almost see the words form on her tongue, a confession, before she retracted them and instead leaned forward and set her cheek on my chest.

And she just…breathed me in.

Like I was her peace.

Her solace.

Fuck, how desperately I wanted to be.

I gently ran my hand up and down her exposed neck, lifting chills on her delicate skin.

My voice splintered when I told her, "I can handle your truth."

The problem was I could never give her mine.

I dropped my lips to the top of her head. "Don't need you to hide. I can handle your burden."

When she only tightened her hold on my shirt, I murmured, "Whenever you're ready, you say the fuckin' word, and I'll end this."

Knew I was exposing more about myself than I ever had before. But I wouldn't keep it from her. Not if it could set her free.

A shudder rolled through her, the woman getting the meaning, only she pressed herself closer, shifting so she was burrowing her face up into my neck.

She took in the deepest breath, like she was trying to draw me in, bring me closer.

Fuck, I was already there.

"Going to take you to my place now. "

She jolted back, and she was instantly shaking her head. "That's not?—"

I had her back in my arms in a flash, plastering her against me, my mouth at her jaw. "Please don't fight me on this, Charleigh. No fuckin' way could I send you back out on your own after this."

She peeled herself back so she could stare up at me. "I'm not your responsibility."

I dipped down until my lips were a breadth from hers. "Yeah, baby, you are. The second you ran through my door? That's what you became. My responsibility. So, thank you, Little Runner, for runnin' to me."