Scarlett: (GxG)

Chapter 51

Scarlett

The door hadn't been shut fully, looking as if someone had left in a hurry and not bothered to look back to see the lock catch. Any other time I might not have noticed, but my mind was racing. Robyn, Jordan, Deacon, Zoey... they all were there in my head, making me dizzy. But right now, there was only one person I was desperate to find. For some reason I was so sure I could make things right. This time there would be no stuttering brain, or half thought out sentences, or fists...

Blood streaked along the carpet, deep red and dry. Standing still I could see it was really a trail, leading from the back yard where the sliding glass door had been left open to the front door. The scent that lingered, mixing with the dhampir's, made no sense to me. Like a fool I froze, still sweat slick from the run and my racing through the neutral lands. Deacon's scent here of places, a place where both of us were supposed to have been safe, made my mouth go dry.

Panic I'd only ever experienced one other time in my life seeped into my bones. The blood, the quiet house where only the crickets shouted their existence.

"Zoey?!"

Why did I bother to call out? She was gone. If there was anyone here, no one was drawing breath. I'd taken only a few steps before I was running, urged on by the ungodly fear my teenage self should have never had to have experienced that summer day. My hand hit her door, forcing it to whip open and smack against the drywall.

Inside I saw dresser drawers pulled open, a few items of clothing on the floor as if she'd hurriedly packed. The sight mirrored that old memory, but the end result hadn't been anything like this. Instead I'd seen my worst nightmare tucked away in a back bedroom. A selfish woman who'd taken a violent and easy way out.

As the memories began to mege, I fought against it. I didn't want to see all that blood. Or the drunk who somehow reversed their role with me until I was the young adult raising their mother, pulling her from bars, paying her rent.

I didn't want to see Mom. Couldn't see her...

"Did you fix the fridge?"

The voice I heard didn't belong with the memory I was suddenly holding onto. A few blinks and I was in the shower with my dhampir. Warm rivulets of water ran
down her skin while her brown eyes squinted up to see me without glasses. A large amount of suds she'd failed to wash away sat on her head like a lopsided crown.

When I smiled I didn't know if it was because I was happy to be taken from my heavy thoughts, or if it was because she apparently didn't know how to wash her hair properly.

"Did you fix it?" she repeated, a smile on her face. "I went to close it and it actually worked."

My taller body stepped into her, sliding a hand over her head, to help wash away the suds.

"I wasn't leaving you without a fridge," I said, turning my hand sweeping across her head into me tugging her smaller body into mine.

Thanks to the shower her skin was hot and slick against me. Fingers found the bite mark I'd given her along her shoulder. Guilt tried to come, but I shoved that shit away. She was mine. I'd already told her as much. That was all there was to it.

"Thanks, for doing that," she mumbled into my chest when she laid her head against my breasts.

I grimaced a little under the stream of water that beat into us both.

"Don't thank me for fixing something I beat the shit out of. Shouldn't have happened in the first place."

With that I could feel her hold me just a little tighter.