Page 235 of Chaos Kills

It reminds me of the time we slept together with no one around. When he told me I was the only girl he had ever brought in here before. When I threw the condom he plucked from his jeans and rebelliously threw it across the room.

I mindlessly scan the room some more, finding a comic book at the end of the mattress, and crawl over to grab it.

It’sBatman, some oldie that appears to have been flipped through over a dozen times. The edges are bent, and the spine isworn but the color of the cover is still vibrant as well as the pages inside.

“Batman doesn’t die in that edition, but if he does, I’m going to blame you.”

My eyes fly up from the pages, finding Reeve pushing himself up as the blanket I put over his body falls off his naked chest, revealing the skull tattoo and one tatted arm.

He rubs at his temples, chin tucked into his collarbone as I carefully put the comic down and force the next words from my mouth.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like your chump-ass boyfriend hit me,” he mutters weakly, dragging his fingers down the side of his face. “Why the fuck are you still here?”

“I just wanted to make sure?—”

“Get the fuck out of my room, McQueen.” He doesn’t spare me a glance, but he does notice Ozzy in the space with us. “You too, Ryland. If Cairo sent you in here to babysit, he’s got me fucked-up if he believes it’s gonna be you.”

“Reeve…” I swallow, slowly pushing myself up to stand from the carpeted floor. “We need to talk.”

“We don’t.” His half-lidded hazels skim over to me. “Get out.”

“Please, Reeve?—”

“Don’t fuckin’ beg me for dick,” he clips out, then goes back to pointedly ignoring me. “I swear to fucking God, I want you out of here, and I never want you in here again.”

I ignore him, aware I may never get this opportunity again. “You can’t keep going down this path.”

“Go fuck yourself. You don’t have a right to tell me anything.” He steadily moves from the bed and sits at the edge, working up the strength to stand up.

“I don’t want you hurt.”

“Too late for that.”

“Cocaine isn’t going to make things better, Reeve,” I rebuke. “You can’t come back when you’re dead.”

“Good.”

“Stop,” I leer, using my anger to ground me. “Don’t talk like that.”

“I thought I told you to leave.” He raises his focus and meets my unhurried exit of his space. “I’m not going to tell you again.”

“Then do it for yourself.”

He nods along, but he’s not actively attentive to the shit I say. “Sure.”

I don’t know what else to do, watching him detach from me right before my very eyes and leaving me with nothing.

“It’s not going to feel this way forever,” I mutter. “This emptiness. The same kind I feel because we’re not together. I pushed you away, and I’ll never be able to make up for that, but I need you to know that I care about you. That I’m never going to stop caring about you. I need you to be well because the idea of you doing something stupid that’s irreversible isn’t something I want to have happen to you or a thing I can deal with.”

My vision blurs as my heart aches for him to take one ounce of my advice and use it.

“I love you, Reevie. I’m always gonna—” He launches off the bed then, driven in my direction with a new purpose to shut me the hell up or shake me silly.

Reeve moves so fast that I don’t even get a chance to look at his face before he drives me back, bumping into me with his palms on my shoulders and herding me out of his room.

I almost stumble, especially when his next words boom furiously across the air and lash out against my skin.

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