Page 100 of His Greatest Muse

My hackles rise before I force them back down. She’s all over my social media. And Adalyn’s. This is common knowledge. Not dangerous.

“I just really like ice cream,” I grunt, not willing to risk letting him know anything about Tinsley.

He lets it go and changes the subject as he scans the ice cream. I shove a twenty-dollar bill in his hand, refusing change, and watch him put the cartons in a plastic bag. It’s obvious that he wants to talk more, but I’ve let this go on long enough. I’m rattled and anxious. My head is on a swivel as I rush outside and push toward the house.

The street is so silent it feels wrong. I don’t know if that’s in my head. My heart is pumping too quickly. I’m too out of it. Helplessly on edge. I need to be beside her. I’ve been gone too long, and the beast in my chest is unhappy with the distance between us.

My feet drag on the sidewalk, but there’s another sound nearby. More footsteps. Faster. Clunkier.Frantic.

I turn too late.

Blue eyes flash in front of me before I’m gasping, pain blasting through my jaw. He swings again, this time forcing us into a hidden alleyway. I stumble and dodge his punch, rage straining beneath my skin. The man keeps his hood up, shielding his face in the shadows. I grit my teeth and harness the pain that follows to drive my arm out with more force. My fist sinks into his abdomen, making him bend in half, gasping for breath.

“You’re a dead man,” I growl, reaching for his hunched figure.

He shoots forward then, sending the hood flying back, exposing his face as we collide. I didn’t need to see his face to know who it was. The eyes gave him away. I’ll never forget that shade of blue. Not even in death. His and mine.

I hit the ground first. My lungs pinch, leaving me gasping for breath at the hard impact. He takes advantage of that, diving on top of me. His knuckles meet my face, and my head whips to the side. I focus on the flash of his scarred, uneven knuckles before the hit. On the hiss of pain that escaped him directly after.

Warm metal fills my mouth, leaking from my lips and dripping down my chin. The inside of my cheek burns, but the pain doesn’t register. I reach for him, my nails ripping through the skin of his neck as I push. He drops his hands to my throat and attempts to wrap them around it. I grip his wrists and squeeze, snapping my torso off the ground before he can grab hold of my throat.

The man tumbles beneath me. I spit the blood filling my mouth into his face and bare my teeth as my fists fly. One, twice, three times, my knuckles hit his jaw. I spit again, blood and spit coating his cheeks.

“Tell me your name!” I roar, squeezing his throat with one hand while the other grips his swollen jaw.

He shifts beneath me. I realize in an instant that I haven’t pinned him properly. His hands move between us, searching and searching. The soft sound of a switchblade flinging open into the calm breeze is all the warning I get before I’m falling to the ground. Gravel crunches in my ear. Fire flares in my side. Flames upon flames spread through my torso. My lips part in shock, the starless sky glaring down at me.

Footsteps, heavy breaths. Blood rains down on my face. “I’ll tell Tiny happy birthday from you.”

More footsteps. Receding. Another set, fainter. Maybe it’s all in my head.

My fingers shake as they move to my right side. Warm and sticky. Wet. Blood seeps from the wound, steadily coating my hand. Too much blood, I realize when my vision swims. Adrenaline has my ears thumping with my pulse. Heat makes way for cold. A cold so similar to ice baths.

Tinsley.

I reach for my pocket and bend forward, groaning in pain as the flow of blood on my fingers increases with the movement. My grip is weak on my phone, but I pull it out and manage to type my password. When I find the right contact and hear the dial tone, I let it fall to the ground beside me. For the first time, I’m thankful for the sneaky location tracking app he got Tinsley to install on my phone before we left for the tour.

My voice is a garbled mess when I try to speak. Braden’s voice is the last thing I hear before the lights go out.

“Noah?”

38

TINSLEY

“You could go outsideand smoke like a civilized person, Joshua,” Sparks grumbles from the couch. She waves a hand through the fresh cloud of smoke floating toward her and coughs.

He rolls his eyes and rolls the joint between his fingers. “Using my full name, really?”

“You’ve been smoking outside for the past six weeks. I thought we had you house-trained by now. Silly me.”

“Yeah, silly you.”

I watch the two of them silently from my oversized, black, fuzzy chair in the corner of the room. It was an early gift from Sparks, and I haven’t gotten out of it since the moment I found it in the living room this morning. My heart hurts a little at the thought of it stinking like Josh’s weed, but I’m sure I could always steam clean the smell out.

Checking the time on my phone for the thousandth time, I tap my kneecap in a nervous pattern. Noah said he would be home in fifteen minutes. That was almost an hour ago. Both of my calls since have gone unanswered. The gnawing in my gut feels a lot like a warning that something isn’t right.

“Have either of you heard from Noah?” I blurt out.

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