Page 73 of The Shadows We Keep

Him & I – G-Easy, Halsey

The ride back to the apartment is quiet. Harkin hasn’t moved his hand from my body since we climbed into the SUV. When I saw the man in the expensive suit exit the building on his own and the minutes ticked by without Harkin following, my anxiety peaked. As soon as the blacked-out town car pulled out of the lot, I grabbed the pistol he’d left me with and sprinted across the pavement into the building.

Seeing him on his hands and knees, a gun pointed to the back of his head didn’t leave me with much of an option but to shake off the metaphorical dust on my shooting skills. It wasn’t the first time I’d watched the light in someone’s eyes dull at my hands. But it was the first time I’d had someone bear witness to the crime.

That ceased to matter when Harkin sliced through his second captors throat spraying blood across the floor. Any sane person would have lost their mind at the quick succession of events. My brain, however, didn’t care.

What’s another dead body for my psyche to gloss over?

It was Harkin or him, then me or him. We made our choices, and they’ll leave us with a toxic bond for the rest of our lives.

Harkin pulls up in front of the building, where James is standing at the ready. He quickly opens the driver side, whispering what I can only assume is what just happened. James jumps into the driver’s seat, and the moment we’re both out of the car, he takes off.

“Let’s go,” he says, pulling me into the building firmly, heading straight for the elevators.

The apartment door latches and locks behind us, then he’s on me. A rough hand tightens around my throat, the momentum behind it shoving me back against the wall in the entryway. My head connects from the impact.

“Who the fuck are you?” he barks, his grip tightening against my flesh.

I can’t breathe, let alone answer. So, I stand there stoically, sucking in a minuscule amount of air through my nose. I watch as his eyes grow black. A terrifying calmness settles between us. I don’t fight him off. I wait until he realizes his mistake.

“Fuck,” he yells into the empty apartment, dropping his hand from around my throat and leaning his forehead against mine. His right fist comes out of left field crashing into the wall just millimeters from my ear. This Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde insanity is giving me whiplash.

Shoving against his shoulders, I take back my space before pushing past into the living room. My feet don’t need instructions. We need something to dull the rising panic as the realization of what’s happened starts unravelling.

What about the bodies? Who were those men? Someone will know they’re missing and come after us, what then?

My fingers fumble with the crystal stopper, trying to free the clear liquid my body so desperately craves. Finally pulling it open, I empty two fingers in one tumbler before filling a second. I down my glass, wincing at the fire like substance warming my veins. I refill it swiftly before taking both back over to where Harkin still leans against the wall that separates the kitchen from the entryway.

“Drink this,” I demand.

His icy fingers grip the glass, shooting it back without pulling his gaze from the darkened windows. His whole body shutters once the liquid coats his insides.

“Vodka?” He grimaces in disgust.

Not a vodka guy; noted.

I shrug, pulling him deeper into the living room. “We should talk,” I coax.

He must still be reeling. I’m almost certain that’s the first time Harkin has ever taken a life. Alina’s profile flutters into my mind, but I bat it away. He didn’t take her life, and I refuse to be one of those people that puts the burden of their accident on his shoulders.

His eyes focus as they drift slowly from the windows in my direction. “Yeah, we should.” His throat clears the frog stuck there.

His frame collapses against the leather and all I want to do is crawl into his lap and stay there, ignore the mess we’ve made. Instead, I sit across on the hard coffee table, allowing its sturdiness to support my body and mind.

“What did you find out?” I ask as he huffs out an irritated sigh.

“That good, huh?”

“Not even that. They didn’t give me anything. Only your name. They had your apartment’s rental agreement. When I played off that I didn’t know who you were, the big guy left me with his friends in there. I’m assuming, they knew where you lived and followed you from there. After the incident with Marco,” his hands tighten into fists at his sides, “they lost your location.”

“Speaking of his friends.” I raise an eyebrow in question.

“James is handling it.” That fact releases some of the pressure on my shoulders.

“That’s great and all, but Harkin, we killed two people. Two people who will not go unnoticed when they don’t show up back where they’re supposed to in a couple of hours. What are we going to do about that?”

“I’ll figure it out. But first, I want to know what the hell you were thinking walking in there like that?”

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