Page 62 of Beyond Reason

“I’m going to cool off before I do something we both regret.”

I wasn’t sure if I was threatening him or trying to spell out that I wanted to kill a man that was already dead, a man whose body I was walking around in. Whatever it was, I knew I had to get out of the room.

We fought—that’s what we did. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t given him a hint of where I was going. He’d find me eventually, if he wanted to.

“Xavier, wait!”

Damn it, I really hoped he wanted to.

Chapter 18

Axel

It had been a week, and I hadn’t found him. There were only so many places he could go, but I didn’t know where to look. I wasn’t sure where to start. I wasn’t even sure if he’d stay put if I did figure out where he was.

He had to know what this was doing to me—he had to know how it was killing me inside… and I couldn’t even feel bad about the last conversation we’d had. I meant everything I’d said. Our lives would be better, safer, so much more simple if he didn’t go back to the work he’d been in before.

The work that had gotten him killed.

Even if I had avenged him, that didn’t mean that it couldn’t happen again, that it wouldn’t happen again at some point.

Half of the people who I’d cleaned scenes for stopped calling me eventually. When you worked every day with the threat of death knocking at your door, someday the Reaper was going to come to collect. You could avoid it, but you couldn’t escape it forever.

Even the best of us slipped up sometimes.

Knowing that I was right didn’t make me any less miserable that I’d opened my mouth to begin with, especially when we were so far from the house. He could have gone in any direction, and I had no way of tracking him down, no way of figuring out what had happened to him.

I needed help.

Especially since some small part of me was worried that the people who’d been after us had found him, that they were going to hurt him.

That they were going to take him away from me again.

And if that was the case, there was really only one answer to who I could call for help with that… and I had no idea if the number I had would even work.

It didn’t stop me from calling it when I’d been looking for a week and I still hadn’t found him, though the obscure leave a message after the tone didn’t tell me if the number was right.

I tried to keep my words as careful as I could. “I know you called me before for help, and I didn’t believe you then. I believe you now. I’ve seen proof. If you want to take care of them, I’m here to help. I'll be at my house.”

I hung up and frowned at my cell phone.

That might have been a mistake.

“It was probably a mistake.” I answered my own worry aloud and started pacing again. I felt restless. He’d run before—God knew we’d fought and he’d left before—but things were different now.

I was different.

Everything was different, because before, I’d been so convinced that Xavier was invincible. I was so sure nothing could hurt him, that no one would take him away from me. I was sure he’d always come back.

I’d never imagined he’d come back that final time as nothing more than ash in a box.

“Fuck…” I couldn’t stop my feet from carrying me to the fireplace, to that little shrine I’d made for him so many years ago. What would I do if I found him and he was dead again?

Would I just have two little boxes to stare at?

“Fuck!” I shouted it this time, and felt the pain radiating up my arm a second before I realized I’d punched the damn stone. I stared at it.

Red on white.

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