Page 121 of Falcon's Prey

I pulled my legs up on the bench, resting my chin on them, and I smelled the flowers. Tomorrow I would be getting out and rejoining the “real” world. My dad’s accident, my so-called uncle going AWOL, pushed me over the edge, and I finally sought help.

I was a diamond, and diamonds don’t break.

It turns out I didn’t pull that out of my ass. It was something my father used to say to me when I was little before we moved to America. My therapy sessions were intense, especially the first one I had with my father. There was a lot of crying, apologizing, feeling ashamed. He cried, I cried. We both lied to protect the other, and at the end of the day, he didn’t judge me, and I couldn’t do the same. After our first session, I told him I needed a smoke, and he just laughed and said I had to wait until I got home.

I always knew my problem wasn’t that I needed the drugs. I just did them to party, to have fun, to be what everyone already thought of me. When I was with Silas, they were a crutch, but now the only thing I craved was pot. Well, almost the only thing.

“May I sit next to you?”

My head snapped up at the soft lull of the woman’s voice. She had black hair and pale skin and was about my height, maybe just a tad bit taller, but that wasn’t saying a lot.

“Go ahead,” I said, getting ready to get up out of the way and let her have the bench.

“I love daphnes; they’re my favorite,” she said in the same low tone, almost like it was being controlled. “I’m sorry…I’m probably freaking you out. I come every week to visit my brother, and I see you sitting here looking so alone, I couldn’t help myself.”

“My father came already; he gets tired easily,” I mumbled, trying not to be rude to her.

“Ah, fathers. They can be a big blessing or the biggest of burdens.”

Wasn’t that the damn truth? I sat there with the weird goth chick until we got talking about other life things. She had a way of coaxing things out of you. She told me things about life, and I told her about mine without going into detail.

She went to play with her hair, and the tattoo at her wrist caught my eye. It was simple yet elegant, just the letterS, and I wonder if it meant something to her.

“Boyfriend’s name?” I asked her with pain because I was pathetic, and tattoos reminded me of Ren.

“It’s a family tattoo. We all get them.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“How about you? A boyfriend waiting for you once you’re out?” she asked, and if she knew if we were meant to wait before going into a relationship so soon, she didn’t care.

“There’s no one,” I mumbled.

“You have fire in your gaze,” she said as her silver eyes pierced me. I found it hard to keep looking into her eyes, so I looked away.

“My time is up,” she said as she stood up. She might have been short, but she carried herself with confidence. Before she left, she turned to me one last time. “You can often tell the measure of a man or a woman by simply looking at those they’ve given their hearts to.”

What a weirdo.

Even so, as I watched her leave, her words stayed with me.

* * *

Ren

Hidden in the shadows, I waited for the gates of the rehab facility to open. I was too far off that Ember wouldn’t see me, so I wasn’t worried about that. Leaving her in the hospital was the last thing I wanted to do, but she had almost died and didn’t want me there. So as mad as it made me, I left. I had shit to take care of, so I would give her time to get her pretty little head on straight, and then I would go for her.

I didn’t believe in coincidences. From the start, Ember was meant to be mine. Everything kept adding up. Out of all the people who lived next to her, it had to be Ashton Hill. Thanks to Enzo, I was able to gain access to the emergency tunnel. I lit a cigarette and brought it to my lips, not wanting to think about what would have happened had I killed anyone who stood in my way just to get to the top floor. I would never have made it to Ember on time.

She was my ultimate addiction, and I knew I was hers, so no amount of rehab was going to take that want away. I watched the gates open and her Maybach leave the grounds, and I knew her days of pretending she didn’t need me were numbered.

You never really let your addictions go; you pretended like they were irrelevant by making a new life where they are forgotten, to find something new to sink yourself into to forget that one craving you had. It would be a cold day in hell before I let Ember forget me.

I took a drag and exhaled. “You can run, princess, but you’ll never hide.”

So I watched her leave in her car back to her pretty little tower, and I stayed behind because, before I could go back to her, there were a few things I had to take care of.

Watching my surroundings, I made my way to my motorcycle. I was laying low in one of Gideon’s safe houses. The Estacados had done enough, and if I lived long enough, I owed them three favors.

The only reason G had been sticking around was that he was waiting for the day they came for my head. Last two months, I was busy tracking a scared little Pam all the way to Mexico. The bitch didn’t make it very far.

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