Page 65 of Three for a Girl

“What?”

Kyle tore his eyes off the tent, and Chad gestured to Jess.

Kyle hurried forward, and slipped the collar back around her neck. Kyle held the leash between his teeth and tightened the buckle on the collar. He tested it, made sure Jess couldn’t go free, then went back to staring at the tent. Jess’s eyes fixed to Kyle. Despite being restrained, she beamed at him, eagerly licking his hand, and wagging her tale.

Chad’s jacket hit him in the face and he blinked.

He caught it before it dropped to the ground and glared at Ally.

“Come on,” she said. “I need my Frappuccino.”

“You sure? I already think you’re cold as ice…”

“Cold as ice, but as sweet as sugar.”

“Bitter like a lemon more like.”

She laughed. “Let’s go, partner.”

Chad followed her lead, but his eyes were drawn like a magnet to Jess, still gazing up at Kyle, wagging her tale despite the collar tight around her neck.

Chapter Ten

Chad gasped himself awake, Marc Wilson had invaded his dreams.

He’d drugged Chad and cut him and told him that no one was coming for him.

It wasn’t the first time he’d relived his horror in his sleep, it wouldn’t be the last, but there was no Romeo waiting on the other side, no way of seeking him out.

Romeo who’d sit with him in the kitchen and throw pun after pun at him until he finally laughed. Romeo who’d pull out a crossword book or put on a movie. He didn’t even have to touch Chad, he only had to be there—the presence of him was enough to lift Marc’s influence.

Without Romeo, the sloshing in his stomach forced its way up. He curled over as he made his way into the bathroom and dropped to his knees in front of the toilet. The bile burned at his throat, and he clutched his neck as he vomited.

His breaths came in pants and all the numbers cut into his flesh sung with a fresh wave of pain. He could feel them all humming in his skin, throbbing through his t-shirt. The rash Marc had given him, the one he could never get rid of.

Chad tugged his t-shirt over his head, and struggled to his feet. He braced himself against the sink and dragged his gaze over the numbers.

They responded to his gaze, tingling with their individual memory.

The scalpel, the sick satisfaction in Marc’s eyes, the way his lips parted when the blood flowed, as if he was getting some sexual kick from slicing Chad open.

Chad retched before slapping his hand over his mouth. He had nothing else left to throw up, but the retching hurt until he swayed on his feet.

Romeo had rescued him.

He’d stopped Marc from dragging the scalpel over his throat, saved him before he would’ve choked, gasped, and spluttered as blood poured down him and his artery spat all over the bed.

Chad ran his fingers over his right pectoral. The unmarked piece of skin that had been destined for Marc’s bloody number one. He hadn’t got the chance. Chad’s flesh hadn’t been peeled back, or sliced. Romeo hadn’t allowed someone else to claim what already belonged to him.

Chad already bore his mark, below the surface, a burned number one right on his heart. Romeo’s personal brand, and with every beat it glowed, warming him from the inside.

His heart belonged to Romeo, whether he wanted to stop it, or let it thrive, it was his. But leave it, allowing the scorch to cool and his heart to freeze and shatter, that pain was worse than all his slices and cuts put together.

Chad shuffled downstairs and curled up on the sofa. He flicked on the TV and watched the news headlines, waiting for a sign. Terrorism, rape, GBH, coercion, manipulation. Each headline filled the screen, a few minutes for each. None about a strangler, none about a sighting of the infamous countdown killer.

Romeo had left him, and he hadn’t agreed to that.

It was life or death with them, that was how it was supposed to be, not stuck in the middle, only existing.

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