Page 106 of Falling Too Late

“You won’t fucking smoke! Period! I lost one person I loved to this shit; I won’t lose you too! Not again!”

He slowly walked toward me, hands still up like he was trying to calm a wild animal.

“You aren’t going to lose me, Wren.” His fiery brown eyes were on me.

“Like I wasn’t going to lose you before? You forget, Alex, I thought you were dead for five years. I mourned you once. I can’t do it again.” My voice broke.

“Okay, I won’t smoke.”

“Promise me.” It was a demand that I didn’t care if I had the right to make.

“I promise.”

I let him drive my car. I sat in the passenger seat with the radio on. We drove in silence. The ash trees passed by my window on our way into town, thinning out as we got closer to town until there were none at all.

He drove us to the industrial district, parking outside a huge warehouse.

“Where are we?”

“This is where I’ve been staying since I got out.”

I closed the car door behind me. The building was nicecompared to everything else around. The other buildings were older, rundown, with graffiti everywhere.

“You’ve been staying here?” I asked, confused.

It looked like another prison to me.

We went inside. The place was empty except for some boxes stacked at the back of the building. The door closing echoed in the empty space. I looked around, a chill running down my spine.

“This place is creepy,” I muttered.

“At least it’s quiet,” Alex mumbled.

In the center of the huge warehouse were rows of boxes stacked four high each. He stopped in front of them.

“What am I looking at?” I asked when he didn’t say anything.

Alex sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets, and paced. “I really wished I hadn’t agreed to stop smoking.”

I crossed my arms and glared at him.

“When I got out, I met someone who helped me get back on my feet. I didn’t know what to expect when I got out, but I expected the worst. I wanted to know what you were up to. What everyone was up to really. I didn’t understand why every person in my life stopped talking to me. So, Ezekiel got me into contact with a private investigator.”

“Who’s Ezekiel?’

“He’s who owns this building.”

“How did you meet him?”

“I met his brother in prison.”

“That doesn’t tell me how you methim.”

Alex threw his hands up, stopping me. “Wren, please.”

I took a deep breath and nodded, motioning for him to continue.

“I told the private investigator our story. I told them about Kevin. When the PI, Foster, looked into him, they found he had a storage unit.”

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