Page 9 of Indirect Attack
If it ever would.
Breathing a deep sigh, I sat up and let my head hang back. The rush of blood left a ringing in my ears that washed away my thoughts, only to hear an explosion of bullets from the next room along with Greg’s curse of anger.
A cascade of jingles told me I had a text message, and I sat up, staying still for a moment as the world around me stopped spinning and righted itself. My phone jingled again, a reminder, and I reached across my desk for it.
My advisor had promised me a text that morning, but in her usual scatterbrained fashion, I hadn’t gotten it yet. But the message on my screen wasn’t from her, nor was it from my mom or my grandmother.
I froze, looking at the simple message with Ben’s photo next to it:Look outside.
Out of my seat in a flash, I crossed the half-room space between the desk and the window in only a few steps. When I pressed my face and hands to the window, I saw Ben down on the street, leaning against a rental car in his fatigues.
My heart beating wildly, I yanked the window open, the surge of adrenaline making easy work of the normally stubborn casement.
“What are you doing here?” I called down, pressing as far into the screen as I could. I probably looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care.
Ben looked up, surprised to hear my voice from the second-story window.
“Why don’t you come down?” he called back, his voice echoing in the quiet street outside the apartment building.
“I’ll be down in a second. Don’t go anywhere.”
I slammed the window shut and threw my phone on the bed, dashing around, trying to make myself presentable. As I pulled my hair down from the messy, oily bun I’d wrapped it in earlierand brushed my teeth like a mad woman, I mentally ran through all the reasons Ben could be down below.
Why was he here now? Why hadn’t he told me he was coming? I hadn’t heard anything from him for months, and suddenly he was here?
Throwing my sweatshirt and sweatpants onto the bed, my adrenaline urging me to hurry, hurry, for the love of all that was good hurry, I dug my cutest top that wasn’t too dirty out of the laundry, threw it on along with my jeans, and shoved my feet into my flipflops before running back to the window to tell Ben I was coming down. All I could see in my mind’s eye was the moment I would leap into his arms, how they would feel around me, how I would be able to smell his aftershave and the scent of his skin.
But my forward motion stopped abruptly when I realized Greg was already outside, ambling up to Ben with his hands in his pocket like he owned the entire block. Ben hadn’t seen me yet, but I saw him straighten as Greg moved toward him, pushing away from the rental car.
“Can I help you?”
The words drifted up to my window.
“I’m waiting for Jasmine Davis. She lives upstairs.”
I watched, frozen in horror, as the scene unfolded because I knew Greg’s next words. And whether I was thinking of breaking up with him or not, they were the truth.
“Yeah, that’s my girlfriend.”
I saw the moment Ben froze and lifted his eyes to me, our gazes locking before his shoulders sagged.
Pushing away from the window, I bolted. For once, I didn’t even care if the old man downstairs got angry at me for the noise I made pounding across the apartment and flying out the door.
But by the time my feet touched the pavement, it was too late—Ben’s car was already halfway down the block, being swallowed up by the shadows as it went.
Ice made my blood run cold, stabbing me with a thousand points of pain that wouldn’t equal the pain I felt in my heart, the center of my chest so heavy I could barely draw a breath. Then white-hot anger drove the cold away. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d whipped around and shoved Greg right in the chest.
“What the hell was that?” I shrieked.
“I could be asking you the same question.” Greg’s eyes narrowed into a scowl as he stumbled back a step and then gained his footing. He’d heard about Ben before. Of course, he had. How could he have missed it when I had more pictures of Ben and me than I had of him and me? And I could see the jealousy simmering in his eyes.
“He’s a friend, you idiot. You know that,” I seethed, clenching my hands into fists at my side. From the corner of my eye, I could see a neighbor’s light flicker on and knew they were watching, if not actively listening, but I was too angry to care. “You did that because you were jealous.”
Greg’s face contorted into a mask of truculent resentment. It was all the confirmation I needed of my theory that he knew exactly what he was doing when he’d gone out to confront Ben.
“You know what? Get your damn gaming system and go. We’re done.”
My anger still boiling, part of me wanted to shove Greg again, especially as his eyes widened and nearly bugged out of his head at my words. But then his face settled into a glare.
