Page 3 of Phantom
That was definitely Colin. I smiled as I remembered the silly, nine-year-old boy. A failed attempt to pull the romantic rocks-at-my-window cliché ended with a rather large stone in my living room and my dad loading up a shotgun because he thought someone was trying to break in. He was so terrified when my dad came storming out of the house that he bolted and jumped into a nearby trash can. I had to wait for my dad to calm down before I could go and coax him out. He was the cutest Oscar the Grouch I’d ever seen.
First name Colin, last name Jones. I would never forget it.
Colin’s presence halted my typical tendency to fly on the defensive. Was it just because I was so happy to see him again? Were those intoxicating green eyes working me over the same way they always had?
I tried to understand the name change. Maybe he was abbreviating it for some reason? I’d known plenty of people who stopped letting people refer to them by a childhood name and picked a different name to live with for the rest of their days. CJ was different enough, I supposed, and it distanced him from his childhood, which I knew was rough.
It would also explain why I could never find Colin Jones on social media when I searched. If he’d stopped going by the name on his birth certificate in lieu of something more concise, he’d probably be using that name on social media. I wanted to continue to poke at it for the full truth, but my inner eleven-year-old was berating me for not already having kissed him.
I couldn’t justify continuing to press when he seemed like he was on the verge of death. Gorgeous though his face still was, he looked worse for wear. It wasn’t just the abrasions on his face, either. His clothes seemed ragged and looked like he’d been wearing them for multiple days in a row, and he was holding his left arm against his stomach, with blood-soaked bandages visible through the holes in his gloves. He was hurting—badly.
“CJ, of course,” I said finally. “How could Ieverforget?”
Colin smirked, seemingly unbothered by the state he was in. “No idea.”
“Ten plus years will do that to you,” I responded.
Colin eyed my gun before slowly turning his gaze to Lockjaw. “Are you gonna pull away your weapons?”
“Should I?” I let out a sharp whistle, and Lockjaw hopped out of his seat and bounded over to my side, his snarl worsening as he prepared to attack on my behalf. “Old friend or not, you were following me, and it’s been longer than thirty seconds.”
Colin’s smirk pursed a little. It wasn’t fear, but something else. Intrigue? “I need your help. My house caught fire, and someone is trying to kill me.”
It was almost humorous that Colin tried to pass off such an outrageous statement as a satisfactory excuse without further explanation. Colin had always been laconic, but that was too much, even for him—or too little.
“That’s all I get? Your house caught fire, and someone’s trying to kill you?”
Colin shrugged and glanced down at himself as if to say, “It’s obviously true.”
“Why is someone trying to kill you?”
“I don’t know,” he replied.
I scoffed. “You don’t know? People don’t earn that much wrath without knowing who would do it and why, Col—CJ.”
“I don’t. I woke up to my house on fire. I didn’t have a chance to ask whoever did it what their reasoning was. I got on my bike and ran.”
“Did they chase you? How do you know that they don’t think you burned up in that house?” I asked.
Colin swayed a little to the right and looked as if he was going to pass out. I clicked my teeth in irritation. There would be time for questions, but that time wasn’t right now. If I didn’t get Colin to a doctor, our reunion would be over as quickly as it began, and not because his mom packed him up and left. I pulled my gun back, and Lockjaw’s growling stopped. He stayed standing at attention next to me, though, until I reached down and patted his head.
“Doesthatweapon have a name?” Colin asked.
I chuckled. “Lockjaw.”
Colin nodded. “That’s appropriate.”
Lockjaw’s tongue lolled out of his mouth as he leaned into my head scratches. “He’s a good boy. I stole him.”
Colin raised an eyebrow. “You stole him?”
“Yup.” I walked over to my bike and whistled, and Lockjaw ran and leaped up into my arms. I settled him back in his seat and fastened him in, complete with his own doggy helmet. “I’ll tell youthatstory when you fess up about why you’re being hunted.”
Colin smiled. “Fair.”
“Can you ride?” I asked.
“I can always ride,” Colin said with a chuckle.
