Page 121 of Fury

A tear slid down my face, and I quickly wiped it away. “Well, this one doesn’t get a happily ever after.”

“In jail, I felt you on me, inside me, under my skin, and I kept that fire burning, fed it, fed myself on it. Even though right this very second, right here, I’m hating you, I can’t cut you off. I don’t know how.”

I pressed my back into the hard wall. Finger penetrated deep, over and over again. And it hurt. But you needed that kind of hurt to keep you aware. Keep you fired up. You needed the clawing, the teeth cutting skin. Traces of blood. The sting. That was where he and I knew where we stood. That was our truth. That was how we functioned.

Finger crackled. Everything with him was raw and seething with blood and boiling oil.

He took in a deep breath. “You’re all up in your head right now because of losing the baby, being on your own all this time. And I’m real sorry about that. But I know this, what you’re doing—getting married to somebody else—is about you being upset, you willing to sacrifice us for something safe, for your idea of normal.”

He rose to his feet, adjusting his leathers, fastening his pants, sealing himself up. “I’m going to leave now, because if I don’t I’m going to say and do shit I’m going to regret later. You’re freaked out, I get that. But being apart doesn’t solve anything. Doesn’t cure anything. Being apart is nothing but hopeless for us. How can you not fucking see that?”

“Stop it!” I crossed my arms and stepped back from him, from the great swell of emotion raging from him, sucking me into its heaving, hot waves.

“You can’t look me in the eyes, can you? Even now that you’re gutting me.” His hand cuffed my throat as he leaned in closer, forcing my gaze to meet his.

Raw.

My hand clutched his wrist. “Let go of me.”

“Don’t make me the villain in this story. You are. You took this away from us.Youdid this.” His voice seethed like a blade sliding in between my ribs, slow and steady, absolute. A noise rose from the back of his throat as his hand left my neck and trailed along my jaw, the edge of my face, his breath hot on my skin. My veins flooded with sour wine, searing acid.

“I’ll let go.” Finger’s voice was low, lifeless. He released his hold on me.

He threw open the door and stalked out of the dressing room. The door slammed behind him, and I flinched.

My tattered heart, along with any self-respect I’d managed to patch together these three years, shuddered like a wooden house in the line of a rushing raging river.

Overflow. Buckle. Collapse.

A cold sweat raced over my skin. The tagged clothes hanging on the door swung back and forth. The silence was stifling. The air smelled differently without him here. Stale. The colors in the room, dull. I gulped for oxygen, but none came.

My legs gave way. I caught myself, clinging to my worktable. Pens and bobbins of thread, safety pins, Post-its, notepads, phone chargers, empty coffee cups cascaded over the edge.

I wanted to pull on the brakes of the locomotive hurtling down the tracks even though I was the one who’d fed it coal.

Justin. Justin.

I knocked my head against the table. Once. Twice. A low howl ripped from me.

This was the end of the fairy tale, and I’d pushed the hero over the cliff. I’d torn the last page of the story from the binding of the book and shredded it, tossing the pieces in the air. Those pieces of paper scattered around me, and I knew that on that final page, there was no “...and they lived happily ever after.”

Smeared in our blood and entrails, there was only, “The Brutal, Ugly, Fucked Up End.”

34

Igot the fuck out ofCalifornia on my bike and headed back to Nebraska. I was exhausted, worn out.

How was I supposed to do this? Breathe? Move without the promise of her within my grasp. In the distance on the road, a blurry figure, pink and blue hair flying, arms lifting over her head, reaching toward the sky, showing me the way, welcoming me home.

This way, baby. Right here. Here I am. Here we are.

She was my exit, the next one coming up, the one I was straining to get to, leaning forward in my saddle, throttle high, engine screaming, wind beating on me.

No more.

No exits. Keep rolling, keep going, going, going.

I blinked past the blur and focused on the road.

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