Page 127 of Behind the Bars

“Jasmine!” I shouted this time, my blood boiling inside of me. I turned her way, and her eyes were wide with worry. “Let. Me.Go.”

She slowly released her hold on my arm, and I stormed off, not looking back herway.

If I saw her, I would beg her to follow me, to help me escape my mind. I would ask her to make meunderstand.

But in that moment, I didn’t want to understand. In that moment all I wanted to do was escapereality.

Chapter Forty-Two

Jasmine

“Jason!”I shouted, racing into the bar. He was setting up getting ready to open in a fewhours.

When he heard his name, he turned to face me. “Jasmine? What’s goingon?”

“Is Elliotthere?”

“Yeah, he stormed upstairs about ten minutes ago. Why? Is everythingokay?”

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s not.” I filled Jason in on everything that had happened, and the worry in his eyes matched myown.

“He’s going to snap,” he toldme.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why he needs us right now. He needs us close, otherwise he’ll start building that wall again, but I’m sure he locked the doorupstairs.”

Jason grabbed his set of keys. “Don’t worry, I got a spare. Comeon.”

We hurried up the stairs, and when we walked inside, there Elliott was, hammering away at his punching bag. He wasn’t wearing boxing gloves. His fists were just pounding into the bag repeatedly, leaving cuts and bruises across hisknuckles.

“Brother, what are you doing?” Jason asked, slowly approachingElliott.

“You can’t just ba-bar-barge in here,” he barked as he continued to hit thebag.

“Eli.” I grimaced. “We were worried about you. That was a lot back at TJ’s. What’s going on in yourmind?”

He kept hammering, notreplying.

“Eli, talk to us, please,” Iurged.

“I don’t want to,” hewhispered.

“Come on, man, we’re here,” Jasonoffered.

“I don’t want you here!” he shouted, hitting the bag one more time before turning to face us. His chest heaved, rising and falling faster and faster. “Leave.”

Jason stood tall. “No.”

Elliott’s wild stare moved to me. “Leave,” herepeated.

I mirrored Jason’s stance. “No.”

He grew angrier and angrier, his breathing erratic, his beautiful eyes filled with madness. “Fine.” He pushed past both of us. “Then I’llgo.”

We called after him, but he wouldn’t turn around. The moment he got outside, he took off running, not looking backonce.

* * *

“We looked everywhere, Laura,”Jason told Elliott’s mom on the phone as we sat in his car. We’d just left the last gym we figured Elliott might go to, and we’d had no luck finding him. “We’ll keep looking through.” He paused. “No, really, you stay with TJ. He’ll pop back up. We’ll call if we hear anything. Okay, bye.” He hung up and released a heavy sigh. “Well, this fuckingsucks.”

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