Page 63 of Texas Hold Em'
Walter Bates began to laugh.
I scrambled out of the bed and landed hard on my ass on the floor. Pain bit into my tailbone and lanced up my spine, but I managed to get to my feet and run to the door.
My way was blocked by a blonde-haired man with broad shoulders and angry eyes.
Jackson.
“What have you done, Carrie?” he asked, his voice ghostly and muted before it became a monstrous bellow. “What have you fucking done?”
I tried to tell him it wasn’t me. I hadn’t done it. But still, no words fell from my lips. All I could manage to do was whimper and grunt, and this just seemed to make Jackson angrier. He shoved me aside and rushed to the bed, where he fell to his knees beside his dead friend and bowed his head.
I had to get out of here. I had to run.
Austin.
Yes, I needed to go to Austin.
I ran out of the bedroom and into the living room, where Brody stood with a defibrillator in his hands, the paddles held up in front of him as he stared at them in a daze. He looked up at me, his broken heart reflected in his eyes. “Why did you make me do this?” he whispered.
I plunged my fingers into my hair and fell to my knees. There, with my forehead pressed to the cool hardwood floors, I finally managed to scream.
CHAPTER 27
JAMESON
Something dug into my lower back in the middle of the night. I hissed in pain and recoiled as Carrie’s heel struck me again right in the soft spot below my kidneys.
“Damn it, woman!” I barked and tried to squirm away from her. At first I thought she was just trying to get comfortable, but as I rubbed at my eyes and woke up properly, I realized she was thrashing around in her sleep. Her fists were balled up, her brow was furrowed, and every now and then she made thin noises of distress through clenched teeth.
“Carrie?” I called out to her, but she didn’t hear me. Sweat beaded on her brow and matted her hair. Her whole pillowcase was soaked and so were the sheets beneath her.
What the hell was going on?
“Hey,” I called louder, rising to my knees and leaning over her as she thrashed and kicked. I took a knee to the ribs as I held her face in my hands and called her name over and over.
Finally, her eyes opened.
But she didn’t see me. And if she did? Well, it scared the hell out of her.
She screamed and kicked more furiously. Her knee drove up intomy hip and her elbow clocked me in the nose. I grunted but didn’t back off. She tried to claw at my face, but I caught her wrists and held them down on either side of her head.
“Carrie! Damn it, it’s me! It’s Tex!”
She writhed but only for a few seconds longer before falling still and staring up at me. The whites of her eyes disappeared as the panic in her face ebbed away. She searched my face as her breaths came in ragged gasps.
“Tex?”
“I’m here. You’re okay. It was just a bad dream.”
“A bad dream,” she murmured. “Yes… a bad dream.”
I released her wrists and rubbed at my nose. “Do you remember what happened?”
Her brow creased more deeply and she closed her eyes. She shook her head fiercely. “I don’t want to. Tex.Please.”
“Hey,” I said, stroking her hair and wondering what the hell had scared her so badly. She sniffled and reached for me, and I did the only thing I could think to do. I rocked back on the mattress until I was sitting cross-legged, and I pulled her up into my lap.
Carrie fell to pieces in my arms.
