Page 80 of Beyond Reason

It was like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode.

My car was parked behind an abandoned building. Once upon a time, it had been a bank owned by one of the most powerful crime families this side of the country. Once upon a time, they’d laundered money, run drugs, and sold people without a care in the world.

Once upon a time, a rival family had decided they’d had enough, and they’d hired two of the best professionals to take care of everyone inside.

I’d promised myself the last time I was here that I was never going to set foot inside again. Judging by the broken window and the open front door, I wasn’t going to be able to keep that promise.

“Fuck.” My hand gripped the steering wheel, and I realized it was nearly impossible for me to let go. Just the thought of getting out of the car was enough to make me dizzy, to make my head spin and nausea threaten to overtake me. I needed to get up, I needed to get out of the car and follow Xavier inside before something happened.

I’d knock him out and drag him back to the house if I had to.

I’d fight him if I had to.

I’d do whatever it took to keep him, to make him understand.

To get a chance to apologize.

But apparently, the one thing I was having trouble doing was getting myself out of the car and walking back into the building where my entire world had ended.

It took another few seconds of forcing myself to take deep breaths and watching as a light flickered from one window to the other in front of me. The building was out of use and it hadn’t had power in a while as far as I could tell, so I could practically track his movement as he trailed from room to room looking for…

Looking for what?

Why was he even here if he remembered? Was it just because he had to see it for himself?

Or did he want the perfect place to confront me?

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know what he wanted or what he was thinking, and it was tearing me apart just as much as the anxiety I felt at the thought of getting out of the car.

With one more breath and the sight of his light disappearing deeper into the building, I forced myself to get out and walk toward the entrance. The thrumming and thundering of my heart demanded I turn around, that I leave this place before I was confronted with memories that I did my best every night to forget. I had to remind myself that the result of those memories was walking, talking, breathing… that he was about to face the scene of his own death alone.

I didn’t care if he hated me, I couldn’t let him do that.

I couldn’t let him go through it by himself.

Never again.

Steeled for the worst, I pushed through the door and headed in a direction I’d tried my hardest to forget. It had never worked though—I’d walked these empty hallways a thousand times in my dreams. I’d been here in my mind so much that my memories seemed more visceral than the reality in front of me. I recalled pristine walls and blood smearing down the halls leading me to Xavier laying cold and lifeless on the ground. It hadn’t been like that when I’d come here in reality, but the more I dreamed of it, the worse it got.

The more I dreamed of him, the more I wondered if that cut at his side had been the reason he’d died. I’d never hurt him like that—I’d never fought with him to the point that he’d had an actual injury, and I’d certainly never done it right before he went out for a job.

I’d never told him to leave.

I should have never let him leave.

I could feel the beat of my heart accelerating and the numbness starting to spread across my shoulders, up along my jawline. It made my ears ring, made the world come in bright arcs of light that threatened to slow me down, threatened to stop me.

But I couldn’t.

I couldn’t let the panic slowly building in my chest keep me from where I had to go, where I needed to go.

And maybe some part of me just wanted to see this place differently—I wanted to see it while he was still alive.

I wanted to see that he was still here, because as I approached the back room, a part of me was convinced that this was some culmination of the worst nightmare I’d ever had… That my mind was so cruel it had convinced me that he’d been alive this entire time, and I was going to realize I’d been wrong.

That I’d never had him back…

---