Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jade

The comfort and ease that had been growing with each moment spent at the clubhouse with Levee slipped away little by little with each mile I drove away from there and back to my own life.

I tried to rein in my increasingly scattered emotions, reminding myself that this was the best possible time for me to head back to my apartment.

It was bright out.

People would be milling around.

And I was going to just make a mad dash into the building and then my apartment. If I didn’t slow or stop, the chances of anyone being able to corner me were really low.

Then, well, I would just keep my butt in my apartment. With the locked and alarmed door. Maybe a knife nearby.

And I was damn sure going to stop. Stop looking for Harvey. Stop trying to figure out who T was and what he or his men might have done to Harvey.

I was done.

Snooping around nearly broke my nose, cut up my face, almost did worse.

I was going to do what the message on my whiteboard demanded. I was going to mind my own damn business.

Staying in my apartment all but assured that.

I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t going to become a shut-in, that I wasn’t going to let the fear rule my life, that I really just needed to hunker down and get some work done. Especially with all these commissions coming in.

I knew, of course, that the fear was the driving force that was making me plan to place a grocery delivery order instead of walking around the store to browse like I always did, loving to get inspired by the sights and scents.

Or why I was calculating how many days I had left of clothes before I would need to brave the isolated laundry room.

I wondered if I could find my savior kid and invite him to hang with me while my laundry washed, giving him a one-on-one art lesson while things washed and dried.

But, for God’s sake, that meant I was relying on a literal child to feel safe. I didn’t care if he carried a switchblade. It was still wrong. Cowardly.

So maybe I could just wash my clothes in the sink instead.

These were the things still on my mind as I found a prime parking spot right out front of the building; I would actually be able to watch my car from my window if I wanted to.

I yanked my purse up on my shoulder, took a steadying breath, and climbed out of my car. I made sure to bleep my locks before taking long, purposeful strides toward the building. I hoped I looked like I was in a rush, not like I was running.

I imagined the worst thing I could do was come off scared. So I tried not to, though I did duck my head to avoid anyone getting too good of a look at my black eye and cut cheek.

I didn’t want to have to lie to neighbor-friends about it too. I’d been doing too much lying already. It was making my stomach hurt.

I was going to need to come clean to Levee eventually if I wanted things to keep progressing with us. And I did.

Maybe after I cooked him dinner. That felt like a good time to tell him something like that.

“Look at you go,” I said to William as he buzzed past me too quickly to possibly get a look at me.

He made some sort of harrumph in response to that but said nothing else as I turned to see him whip into the elevator.

Well, Levee would be glad to know he was using the chair he’d bought him and was able to do more for himself now. Maybe once I got a little makeup on my eye to avoid questions, I could drop over and make sure his hand was alright.

I stuck my key in my lock.

But I didn’t get a chance to turn it.

Because my door just… pushed open.

Panic was a rope around my neck, pulling tighter as the door slid open to reveal my apartment.

My completely wrecked apartment.

A whimpering sound worked its way up my throat and out from between my lips as I stared at the scattered contents of my kitchen drawers and cabinets, at my flipped couch cushions, at my books and trinkets littering the floor.

I stood there for a long moment, listening, trying to hear if anyone was still there. Even if, logically, the person who broke in likely did it at night when no one would see them.

I inched forward, grabbing a knife off of the floor, and leaving my apartment door slightly open in case I needed a swift exit.

Then I inched down my hallway, slipping into the bathroom to check for someone hiding. Behind the shower curtain that was mostly see-through. In the linen closet and under the sink, spaces that were far too small for any adult. But fear was making me paranoid.

I went into my bedroom, yanking open my closet, glad I didn’t have a big pile of clothes someone could hide under, so it was easy to tell there was no one there.

I eyed the bed next, the only place left in the whole apartment to hide.

My anxiety had me rushing forward and just shoving the mattress off of the frame, not caring that it slammed into my nightstand and sent it, the lamp, and the contents on top flying and scattering to the floor.

What was one more mess when the whole place was wrecked?

I glanced between the slats below the mattress.

No one.

With that, I ran back out into the living room, slamming my door, sliding the locks, then shoving the doorstop alarm under it.

Only then did I slide down the wall, giving in to the fear.

My heartbeat was hammering as I hyperventilated, imagining someone in my space, rifling through my things, getting to know pieces of myself I hadn’t willingly shared with them.

Stupid things to worry about, of course. My favorite little teacup with ducks on it. My vibrator in the nightstand. My borderline insane number of fluffy blankets in my closet that I’d collected to get me through the cold winters back home, but couldn’t part with when I moved.

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, forcing myself to slow down, to focus, to think straight.

Things were such a mess that I didn’t even think to check if anything was missing.

Was this even related to Harvey in 7D? Could this have been just your average, run-of-the-mill break-in? Someone desperate enough to steal from a neighbor?

I forced myself to get back on my feet, moving around my apartment with a more discerning eye.

I didn’t own much of actual value, to be honest. I like fun, kitschy stuff. I didn’t own a single designer piece of clothing, shoe, or handbag. I didn’t have top of the line electronics.

The most expensive things I owned were art-related. Paints, charcoals, watercolors, and even nice graphite pens were pricey when you wanted to get quality ones.

But someone who wasn’t an artist wouldn’t know that.

Still, the laptop I did have that had been on my coffee table when I left… was still there.

Which felt like confirmation of my worst fears. That it wasn’t just random crime. That this was related to my attack, to the digging around I’d been doing.

I didn’t know what they were looking for. Maybe they thought I was connected to Harvey in some way, that I could possibly be hiding what they’d been looking for at his place.

But then why did they clean up his place and leave mine a wreck?

Was this just a scare tactic?

If it was, it was working.

Even if I hated to admit that as I slowly moved around my apartment, putting things to rights.

It didn’t actually make me feel any better to have things back in their rightful places, of course, but it felt like I was a little more in control of the situation to do it.

By the time I was done re-washing all of my still-intact dishes, silverware and such, I was exhausted.

I dropped down onto the couch, giving in to the strong urge to cry, knowing that the longer I tried to hold tears in, the worse the breakdown would be when it inevitably came. Better to purge things as they came up than let them fester and grow.

Finished with that, I stalked back down into my bedroom, stripping out of my dress, then pulling Alaric’s shirt again with nothing between me and it, the slight lingering scent of him more reassuring than maybe it should have been considering how new things were between us. But as I yanked on leggings, I decided it was okay to be a little clingy to the idea of Levee when I was going through this strange situation that I had no idea how to navigate.

I forced myself to go toward my easel, knowing that the only way to make the time slip away now that I was back home was to bury myself in my work, to let it completely consume me.

That was what I let myself do. Not focusing on any of the many works I could be doing for Zayn, Teddy, or the women of Levee’s club. Just some random work that let my dark feelings out.

What I was left with was a haunting image of a woman with her hands over her face, her eyes between her fingers bulging with fear, her mouth parted in a scream. There wasn’t much else to the image, the background nothing but dark swipes of my paintbrush, making her look isolated and completely alone in her fear.

It was beautiful and ugly at the same time. But when I finally put my paintbrush into the water and sat back, I felt lighter for getting it out of me and onto a canvas.

It was one of the more personal works I’d done. But I still found myself reaching for my digital camera, another expensive item that hadn’t been touched, and took pictures of it in case I decided to digitize it to sell prints.

I glanced out the windows, surprised how dark it was.

I didn’t flick on my lights, though, which meant the only lights on in the apartment were the one near my easel that I almost never turned off. And the one on the fish tanks.

“Oh, my God, guys,” I gasped, running over to grab the food and dropping an excessive amount into the water, watching as their tails swished as they pushed themselves up to the surface to eat. “I’m sorry,” I told them as they ate up everything I’d dropped. Guilt had me adding more, even if I knew it likely wouldn’t all get eaten and would mess with the pH of the water. I could deal with that later, when I knew their bellies were completely full.

I glanced around my darkened apartment, feeling like it was safer not to have any other lights on. It would look like a big sign telling the bad guys that I was home.

If they hadn’t seen me yet, I’d just rather they didn’t know I was back.

As I sat awake another night, I was starting to think crazy thoughts.

Like how and where someone might obtain a gun quickly.

I didn’t know the first thing about gun laws in Florida. I didn’t even know anything about them in my home state. It was just something that had never been on my mind, I guess. I always felt… relatively safe. Sure, there’d been times when I was feeling followed at night, or when there was a strange sound outside of my home, that kind of thing. But never this bone-deep fear based not on wildly unlikely scenarios I came up with in my head, but actual events.

I was relatively sure it was on the easy side to get a gun down here. But would there be a waiting period? If there was, what were the less than legal channels for getting a weapon?

That wasn’t exactly something you could, you know, look up online. And I didn’t want Lily and Curtis to worry about me if I asked.

Maybe I could ask the kid who saved me if I saw him around again. I had a feeling that kids who carried around switchblades would know a thing or two about this sort of situation. Even if it still felt icky to ask a literal child that sort of question.

In the end, I got through the night. And as soon as the sun started to stream through the windows, I went back to my easel, working the day away on the canvas for Zayn.

Things always felt better in the light.

But, inevitably, night would come. And so would the restless, nightmare-ridden sleep, the fears that had my throat feeling like it was restricting, that had me jumping at shadows and cowering away from strange noises.

I was half ready to pack up my car and drive all the way back to my hometown when my phone chimed for a text.

I would lie and say I’m coming to see my uncle and was going to drop in to say hi. But I actually just want to come see you. You game?

Was accepting his offer just a way of escaping my reality again?

Yes, absolutely.

But I wasn’t going to overthink it.

He wanted to be here.

I wanted that too.

It could be that easy.

I just prayed it didn’t mean I would now be putting him in danger too.