Page 85 of Howl for Me
The ride is a blur of lights and sounds. I jolt halfway awake to the sensation of someone yanking on my arm like I’m a toddler throwing a tantrum in a store. The world outside my eyelids is too bright, too loud, too cold, and her voice cuts right through it like a knife.
“Come on, Johnny,” Cassidy snaps, breathless. “Get the hell up.”
Her fingers are wrapped around my bicep, tugging like she thinks she’s gonna move me by sheer will. I groan and shift just enough to make her grunt in frustration.
“Why are you here?” I slur, eyes still mostly closed. “Didn’t you get the memo? Babysitting time’s over.”
She yanks harder.
“I swear to god, Johnny, if you puke I will kill you.”
“M’fine right here,” I mumble, settling deeper into the seat like it’s a five-star hotel mattress. “Leave me. Let me rot.”
“Not a chance.”
“Persistent,” I mutter.
“Stubborn,” she fires back, already halfway hauling me up by the arm.
I give a grunt of effort and sit up too fast. The world spins sideways, becoming a funhouse mirror and the driveway an uphill marathon. I stumble forward with all the grace of a dying moose, Cassidy trailing behind like a pissed-off chaperone she is.
We reach the front step. I fumble through my pockets, slapping each one.
“I have your keys,” she says, catching me by the elbow and shoving me back against the house so I don’t face plant the ground. My shoulder hits the wall and I sag there, boneless.
“Fuck. Which key is it?” she mutters, holding up the set Hector gave her. They jingle like bells echoing in the night. I watch her fumble with the keyring, her lip curled in concentration, and it hits me all at once, blonde curls, wild and loose around her face, cheeks flushed with effort and anger.
“I love that foul mouth of yours,” I slur with a crooked grin. “All blonde curls and profanity.”
She doesn’t even look at me. “I’m really about to cuss you the fuck out if I don’t get this door open.”
A second later, the lock clicks and gives way. She shoves the door with her shoulder and guides me inside like she’s done it before. Like she belongs here. I trip into the dark living room and crash onto the couch, face-first.
The sound of cabinets opening and closing drifts from the kitchen. She’s rustling around, doing something domestic and entirely unwanted.
Then she’s back beside me, setting something down on the side table, water, painkillers, a trash can, I don’t know. I don’t look. I just reach for her, my fingers curling around her wrist before she can pull away.
“Why won’t you just leave?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t shake you.”
She rips her arm from my grip like I burned her. Her eyes blaze.
“Yeah, you’re welcome, asshole,” she snaps. She grabs the keys from the table and storms out.
I hear the door slam, and then the engine outside coughs to life. Headlights sweep across the ceiling. I try to lift my head, try to stop her. But the exhaustion slams into me like a brick wall and pulls me under.
And just like that, she’s gone.
And I sleep like the dead.
Chapter Twelve
Cassidy
I shouldn’t be doing this.
That thought plays on a loop as I pull into the lot of my apartment complex in Johnny’s car, his ridiculous, too-flashy car that rumbles like a beast even when it’s just idling. I throw it in park and just sit there, staring at the dashboard like it’s going to offer me answers.
What the fuck am I doing?
