The Space Between (The Book of Phoenix) (25 page)

Chapter 18

  “If you had anything to do with it, lady, so help me God—” Ronnie continued, but the phone slipped from my shaking hand before I heard his threat.

I lurched forward and my feet caught on something, making me stumble a few steps before taking off into a sprint. I paid no attention to any possible traffic as I ran across the road and ignored Micah as I bounded up the steps two stairs at a time.

My clothes were already stuffed into bags, ready to be taken to the laundromat. I grabbed a couple, not knowing what was in them and not caring, as well as Sammy’s dog food and leash.

Micah blocked the door.

“Where are you going?” he demanded. “What’s wrong?”

“I have to go north. To Virginia.” I tried to push past him but he was a boulder.

“Not alone. You already know that.”

“I’m going,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Jacey—”

“Just stop!” I yelled. “Forget about me. I have to go north. I have to go to Bex. She . . . she’s . . . she needs me.”

I couldn’t repeat what Ronnie said. I couldn’t believe it. Not until I saw for myself.

“Right this minute?”

“YES!” I screamed. “Now!”

He took a half-step back, startled by my ferocity, and I seized the opportunity to push past him. He flew inside, and I soared down the stairs and for my Jeep. I stopped dead several feet from it. Something was taped to the driver’s side window. A newspaper clipping, about half a page actually. The picture and headline seemed to burn brightly from the page, ensuring I could see them:

MISSING COLLEGE STUDENT’S BODY FOUND

Bex’s picture.

My stomach heaved as though I’d been punched.

Something large slammed into me from behind. Micah caught me before I hit the ground, but his eyes were glued on the same thing as mine. With two strides forward, he ripped it off the window.

“He said she was murdered,” I whispered without really knowing what I was saying. “But it can’t be true. It’s a lie. Right? How could they even accuse me of such a thing?”

Micah’s head snapped toward me. “What?
Who?
”

I stared at him with unseeing eyes, my mind boggling. “It’s not true.”

“They accused you, Jacey?” Micah demanded, his voice rough. Large hands grabbed my shoulders and shook me. I lifted my eyes to his face. “Who? What did they say?”

My mouth moved without my brain registering half of my words.

“Her family. They acted like they didn’t even know me. Said I was some sicko in on it. But it doesn’t matter, Micah,” I said. “It’s not true. She’s not even dead. My Bex . . . she can’t be . . .”

I shook my head, as if I could shake away the last few minutes of my life like an Etch a Sketch drawing.

He pulled me into his arms. “I’m sorry, babe. She is. And you can’t go up there.”

“I have to. She needs me.”

“She’s dead, Jace.”

I shook my head. My throat thickened. “She needs me.”

“She doesn’t. She’s gone. And if you go up there, you could be, too.”

I didn’t understand, my brain trying to block out the truth and the grief and the reality of it all, which meant blocking out everything.

“I have an alibi. They
know
I called from Florida,” I said. “It’s on their Caller I.D. thingamabob.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Micah said, his voice low and soft. “How do you think this article got on your Jeep? It’s from
The Roanoke Times
.”

“That’s the newspaper I had to subscribe to for current events class last year,” I said absently, then his meaning started to seep in. “What’s the date? How did it get all the way down here?”

“Today’s date. And good question.”

The hairs on the nape of my neck rose. “The Shadowmen,” I whispered.

“Probably. And they had to have done it in the three minutes we were just upstairs, because it wasn’t on your Jeep when I came out to my truck.”

I let Micah lead me back upstairs and into the relative safety of my apartment. Not that it resembled Fort Knox or anything, but at least we no longer stood outside in broad daylight with Shadowmen nearby. My bags slid off my shoulders and fell to the floor as I stood dazedly in the middle of the room.

“Do you think they . . . Bex? Is she really . . . ?” My brain was less effective at blocking things out up here in the comfort of my home, and the truth began making its way in.

“I’m sorry,” Micah said again, and I couldn’t deny the sorrow in his eyes.

I swallowed. I nodded. And I doubled over with full-body sobs.

Micah caught me when my knees gave out and carried me over to the pile of blankets we called a bed. He sat down against the wall with me in his lap. My tears and snot stained his shirt as he silently held me tight against him, knowing there was nothing he could say to heal my broken heart.

Time passed. Minutes? Hours? I had no idea, but the light coming through the window had changed before I could finally breathe again. I remained in Micah’s arms, my cheek pressed against his chest, his heart pounding in my ear, and my eyes closed. Memories of the last two years with Bex replayed, and guilt flooded me.

“I should have gone up there before,” I finally said, surprised at how hoarse my voice sounded. “I could have brought her down here. I should have let her come with me in the first place. Then she’d still be alive.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Micah murmured. “Don’t take this on.”

“How did she . . . die?” I asked, hiccupping on the word. “What does the paper say?”

He didn’t answer at first, and somehow I knew he wondered if I was ready to hear it. “Somehow” as in the way we frequently seemed to know what the other was thinking. Bex’s death must have been bad.

“Just tell me,” I said.

“Well . . . it looks like her car broke down on the highway, and they think someone must have stopped to offer her help but had other plans. There were bruises around her neck, as if she’d been choked, and her body was in the woods only thirty yards from her car, but they didn’t find it for nearly three days.” Micah paused, the gulp of him swallowing sounding in my ear as his hand slid up my back and squeezed my shoulder. “They’re investigating to see if she was raped.”

I gasped.
My poor Bex! My poor, poor Bex
. I tried to block the image of her last minutes, but the vision of her struggle—I
knew
she fought—came to me too vividly, followed by the life leaving her eyes. New tears flowed. I should have been there. She should have been here with me! “Do they have any idea who?”

“No one they’re reporting publicly. They’re only saying there were two sets of footprints around her car and another set of tire tracks besides hers.”

“The Shadowmen,” I said.

“Maybe,” Micah said. “But maybe they only knew about it and know she’s important to you. Taping the article where you could see it might only be another way to mess with you. You said she hung around a lot of shady characters, right?”

I simply nodded. Regardless, her blood was on my hands. The Shadowmen obviously wanted something from me and had some sneaky plan of getting it, possibly by hurting me through Bex. And if it wasn’t them, if it was one of those assholes she often ran off with for days at a time, then that was my fault, too, because I hadn’t been there to protect her. I hadn’t gone up there when I should have two weeks ago. A fresh round of tears built in my throat and behind my eyes until I could fight them no longer. I crawled off Micah’s lap, curled into a ball and sobbed again.

I lay in bed most of the afternoon, crying or staring at the wall, wishing the boulder of guilt would crush me already and put me out of my misery. But that’s not how guilt works. That’s not how life works. We have to suffer with the regret of everything we meant to do for others, but never did. It’s always too late for good intentions. Actions matter, not intent, and I hadn’t acted fast enough to save my Bex. Or my Pops. Or my parents. And although I’d felt alone before when Pops had died, I’d had Bex. And Sammy. Now Bex was gone, too.

Sammy lay next to me, and I hugged him fiercely. He whined from the pressure I put on his shoulder, still sore from the cut the Shadowmen had made, and I released my hold. Why hadn’t the wound healed yet?

“You need to get better,” I said. “You can’t leave me, too. You’re all I have left.”

Micah cleared his throat from the other side of the bed. Although I’d pretty much ignored him most of the afternoon, he hadn’t left my side. I rolled over to face him.

“You have me,” he said simply.

I couldn’t look at him, but kept my eyes on my hand as I traced a pattern into his jeans-clad thigh. “I barely know you.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“I mean, we just . . . it’s only been two weeks. How do we—”

“Don’t do this, Jacey.” The sharp tone of his voice brought my gaze to his face. Determination filled his eyes. “Don’t question it. You have me.”

“I don’t know that for sure.
You
can’t say that for sure.”

“Yes. I. Can.”

I sat up, and little lights flashed in my vision, I’d been horizontal for so long. “No, you can’t. Look at me, Micah. Look at my life. Everyone I’ve ever loved is gone.”

“And what? You think it’s some kind of jinx? Are you really going to pull that? Leave it for the books and movies.”

“But maybe it is! I’m fire, remember? And fire kills. Maybe I’m some kind of death warrant for everyone I love. Your life could be on the line, and I can’t risk—”

Micah had been piercing me with narrowed eyes, but now his lips twitched as if fighting a smile.

“What?” I asked with exasperation.

“Did you just say you love me?”

“No.”

“Maybe not in so many words . . .”

I shook my head. He cocked an eyebrow. “So you deny loving me or deny saying it?”

“Neither. Both. I mean—”

He didn’t let me finish, which was just as well because I really wasn’t sure what I meant. Yeah, I loved him. Already. And it was more intense than any kind of love I’d ever felt before—more than the love I’d ever had for Bex or Pops or even my parents and definitely more than for any guy—saturating every cell in my body from head to toe, into my core. Into my soul. But I didn’t want to admit to it. Not to him and not to anyone, because then the universe would know and come after him, too. Because one person could not lose everyone in her life unless she was a harbinger of death. Maybe I was even the grim reaper himself. Herself. Whatever.

It should have always been me. Not them.

Micah braced my face in his hands. “I don’t get it either, but I love you, too, Jacey. I’m not afraid to say it, and I’m not going to keel over and die because I do. Please don’t fight it. Please don’t fight us. We need to be together. You’re all I have, too, you know. We’re all either of us have. And if loving you does by some fucked-up chance kill me, I’m okay with it. I couldn’t die a better way, Jace.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one left behind with a broken heart.” And a fractured soul.

“Well, if you want to look at it your way, I could say the same thing. Everyone I’ve ever cared about has died, too. So it could just as easily be you who d—” He broke off, unable to finish his sentence. He swallowed, then simply ended with, “We don’t know who will go first, but for now, we have each other.”

When my gaze lifted to his face, I felt like I was seeing him for the first time all over again. Touching him for the first time. Falling into his eyes. When his mouth lowered onto mine, I kissed him back fiercely, and I don’t know what overcame me. Maybe the feeling of our souls once again coming together was too much for me to handle this time in my vulnerable state. Or maybe it was the need to know I did still have him. That there was still someone on this earth who cared about me, who made me feel like I mattered, who acknowledged I even
existed
.

Who loved me.

I gave in to whatever it was, and so did Micah. Our mouths moved together, kissing and sucking. Our lips separated and I inhaled him and he inhaled me and our tongues flicked and tasted and tangled with each other. Our hands moved from face to head to neck to shoulders. Down the back, the sides. Under the shirt. Muscles pulled taut under our touches. Fingers tugged at hems. Micah’s shirt came off. He began to lift mine, but I rerouted his hand to the button on my jeans instead.

It had always worked before. I wasn’t flat-chested—I had enough to not look like a boy, but not enough for guys to be infatuated with my bodacious ta-tas. I’d always been able to get away with keeping my shirt on, easy enough when you’re in the backseat of a car or in someone’s closet at a party, when it was all about fucking and not about making love.

But it didn’t work with Micah.

He lifted his head and looked at me, questions in his eyes.

“I want to enjoy all of you,” he murmured.

“No, you don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Trust me. It’s not all enjoyable.”

He cocked his head. “Yes. I do. I love every bit of you, so how could I not enjoy it?”

He pushed my shirt up barely enough to expose a strip of skin, where his lips planted soft kisses. My stomach quivered under his touch, which he took as encouragement, raising my shirt even more. I clamped my hands on his.

“Micah—”

“If you’re not ready, tell me,” he said between kisses, his breath hot against my skin. “We’ll stop right now.”

“I don’t want to
stop
. I just—”

“Then let me love all of you.”

He pushed my shirt up farther, and I stiffened. That was far enough to see. But instead of stopping and recoiling in horror, he lifted my shirt all the way up and over my head. Then he gazed at my ugly body. At the gross, puckered burn scars across the top of my stomach and over my ribs. My body began to shake. I moved my arms to cover my midsection, but he clasped my wrists and held them out to my sides.

His eyes lifted to mine, and I expected to see disgust or pity in them. Instead, I only saw love.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. “Every inch of you.”

He leaned down and peppered my scars with gentle kisses. Overcome with emotions, I grabbed his head and brought it up to mine, needing to kiss him. To show him the same love he’d shown me. His mouth didn’t leave mine as his hands pushed to my back to undo my bra. He slid it off, one arm at a time, then his lips moved from mine and I let out a sigh as he kissed his way over my jaw and down my neck. His hand found my bare breast and squeezed softly, and my whole body ignited. No one had ever seen me like this, let alone touched me. Heat consumed me as his mouth trailed over my collarbone and down, and then flamed hotter when his tongue wrapped around my nipple. His lips pulled my breast into his mouth, and my back arched into him as a moan burned in my throat.

My hands slid over his muscular torso, one exploring the valleys and ridges of his pecs and abs, the other digging into his back. My hand slid down, over his jeans, and stroked his erection. My God was he hard. And huge, at least to me. He groaned against my breast, then moved out of my reach as his mouth traveled to my torso, leaving a trail of kisses over the scars again and down, until he reached the waistband of my jeans. He stopped and looked up at me with scorching eyes. Asking for permission. I lifted my hips, giving it.

He pulled my jeans off, then his fingers lightly stroked around the edges of my panties, the tickling sensation making me tremble. My whole body ached for more, but he teased with feather-light touches and kisses over the top of my underwear and on my thighs until I practically ripped my panties off myself. And finally,
finally
he touched me in the hottest place of all, sending a ripple of pleasure through my core. His fingers and lips and tongue did things no one had ever done to me before, making me writhe and buck against him until I soared into the first real orgasm I’d ever had, although I hadn’t realized it until then. Nothing I’d ever experienced before compared to this. I finally understood the big deal about sex.