Page 55 of Damaged

Not something.

Someone.

And it wasn’t Jace.

“Is he gone?” I grated. My voice felt raw and unused. God, what day was it?

“He’s safe,” Jace responded. A jumble of memories began to hit me all at once. Lying on the cold floor, Jace yelling at me, throwing up all over him…

Silver.

“Oh God,” I whispered as I remembered the image of the young man sitting against the wall, his arms enfolding his legs as he tried to protect himself. And the tears…

“I thought he’d left,” I choked out. “I thought he’d left.”

“You’re fucking lucky he didn’t. And if he’d waited even a few hours to call me, I’d be planning your funeral instead of wanting to beat the shit out of you for scaring the fuck out of me.”

“He called you?” I asked in disbelief. I’d only gone on my binge because I’d been certain Silver had left.

“Yes, twenty-four hours ago. He said your door was closed after some argument or something. He hadn’t wanted to bother you, but he’d still checked on you every hour or so. He called me because he knew he couldn’t help you on his own. He was the one who found you on the floor. He was shaking you and calling your name. It was only by chance that I walked in on you guys in time.”

I could hear the anger dripping from Jace’s voice as he continued.

Fuck, what had I done?

“Where is he?” I said as I stood on wobbly legs.

“He’s saf?—”

“I don’t want to hear that he’s safe. I want to know where the fuck he is!”

“Sit your ass back down,” Jace ordered. He was calm and collected and his voice dripped with ice.

I did as he said but mostly because I wasn’t sure I would have even been able to take a few steps forward. I realized I was dressed in a pair of athletic pants that I hadn’t worn in years along with a freshly laundered T-shirt. My hair was damp, and my skin tingled like someone had used a stiff broom to wash me down.

“You and I are going to have a long talk, Dalton, but I think you have a more important fence to mend.”

I nodded and felt relief surge through my body. I was going to see him again. It was both terrifying and bittersweet.

“There’s something you need to know before you see him,” Jace said, his voice only a fraction calmer now.

I nodded because I knew my charade was over. I knew there would be a lot of questions and consequences, but more importantly that I would have some tough choices to make.

“Last night while you were passed out cold, Silver heard someone trying to open your front door.”

“What?” I shouted. I was on my feet again, but this time Jace was there to stop me. He shoved me back down to a sitting position on the bed. He crouched in front of me, his expression lined with anger.

“When he couldn’t wake you up, he got your gun—I guess he found it at some point when you were out cold?—”

“He found it when he was cleaning. Just like he found all the empty bottles,” I said softly.

Jace was quiet for a few seconds before continuing. “He tried to fire a warning shot above his head, but the gun wouldn’t fire because the safety was on. So he figured out how to set off the alarm on your car instead. It was enough to send whoever’d been trying to get in running. He thinks it was just someone trying to rob you, but I saw the door, Dalton. There were no pry marks or damage to the doorframe, which means it was?—"

“Picked,” I breathed in disbelief. “God damn it!” I ground out. Between the attempted break-in and the fact that I’d thought someone had been following us when I’d driven him to the bus station in Baltimore, it wasn’t a big leap. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I chanted, trying to keep my voice down in case Silver was nearby.

“I got here about five minutes after it happened. That was when I found Silver kneeling over you on the floor, trying to wake you up. I called some of Ronan’s men who live in the area, and they agreed to keep eyes on Silver twenty-four seven for as long as we need to.”

I knew who Ronan was. He was some kind of surgeon who ran an underground vigilante group that didn’t exactly follow the rules when the legal system couldn’t provide a victim or their family the justice they deserved.

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