Page 13 of Reaper's Rival

“Where are you?”

I dropped my head back. Finally, he speaks. “Around the corner from Ben’s carwash.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He ended the call.

I leaned back against the car, feeling all kinds of stupid. Stupid for shooting him. Stupid for coming back here. Stupid for calling him. What was I getting myself into? What did I expect to happen, coming here in the dead of the night?

I unlocked the car and got back in. Like fuck I was standing out there in the cold.

***

I heard him before I saw him. The familiar rumbling of his Harley pipes. I popped open the car door and got out just as he rounded the corner, pulling up to the curb.

What the fuck was I going to say to him now?

I had driven here.

I had called him.

Now he was here.

But I didn’t know what next.

He kicked the stand of his bike out, leaning it to the side, and climbed off.

It was dark, and it was cold. But nothing compared to what I felt inside. Seeing him made me feel a lot of everything, and I couldn’t lie to myself and say what I did to him hadn’t affected me. Cause it had. It had pulled me from the numbness and the coldness that I was living with every day.

It had pulled me back to reality. And reality had slapped me hard across the face. All those lives I had taken hadn’t woke me up. Every time Damon said I was one of his girls, it hadn’t woke me up from the life I had created. What had pulled me from it was shooting the man I once loved.

I got out of the car and turned to face him. “Hey.” I didn’t know what to say. Should I start telling him how sorry I was? Why was I getting the feeling he wouldn’t care anyway?

He didn’t leave his bike, standing next to it, just giving me a dirty look. God, he must be disgusted with me.

“I know it would have taken a lot from you to come out and talk to me.” I knew it went against his pride, against the better half of him. Coming to see me was a big thing, so I would accept his silence.

“You got a whole lot of explaining to do.” He grunted and hung his helmet on the handlebars. “Like why the fuck you are wearing that gang's mark on your shoulder.”

“We’ll get there, but first…” I took a step closer to him and away from the car. “I wanted to say sorry. For shooting you. I’m sorry.”

Did sorry even cut it when it came to shooting someone?

How the fuck was I meant to know? I was new to this. The people I normally shot didn’t live. I didn’t have to worry about how they felt about me shooting them.

“You didn’t shoot me, sweetheart. Got steel-toed boots and for the first fucking time in my life, I was glad to be wearing them.” His voice was hard and cold while he kept his distance from me.

“So I didn’t shoot you?”

“Why, was the guilt eating at you?”

Is guilt eating at me? Was that it? Was that what was consuming me?

“I don’t know anymore.” It was the honest goddamn truth. I didn’t know about anything anymore. I didn’t know what I was doing, where I was heading. All I knew was I was on this ride, and it wasn’t stopping, and it was slowly speeding up, causing me to get dizzier with each passing moment.

I was close to fucking passing out from it.

I slid down the bonnet and brought my knees to my chest. The road was as cold as the night.

“I’m sorry for shooting you anyway.”

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