Page 87 of Break for Me

“Memphis?”

“They’re here, Jersey,” she said in between shaky breaths. “Someone’s in my house.”

My whole body was pressed back into the seat a second later when Jersey slammed his foot down on the accelerator like he planned to smash it right through the floorboard.

“I need you to stay calm and quiet, Memphis,” he said in a collected tone that did not match any part of his current body language. “They’ll take you to try to use you as leverage to get me to bring Trista back to them. Don’t let them find you.”

“Jersey,” she whispered. “They’re going to find me. There’s nowhere for me to go. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t think I’ve ever been this afraid in my life.”

“I need you to listen to me, sweetheart,” he said. “Are you paying attention to me?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t fight them if they find you. They shouldn’t hurt you if you just cooperate. Do what they say, when they say it. Okay? Don’t cause trouble just to be a problem. You’ll only make it worse on yourself,” he stopped to force himself to breathe. “Just do what they say. And I’ll take care of the rest of it.”

“I can hear them,” she said, noticeably crying now. I covered my mouth with my hand to make sure my own crying stayed silent. I was good friends with fear, but having to just listen to someone else who was genuinely terrified for their life was the worst thing I think I’d ever experienced.

“Don’t you dare hang up this phone, sweetheart. Don’t. I’m right here with you, okay? Tell me how to find you, Memphis. What can I use to follow you if they take you out of that house?” He asked.

“Uh —,” she sounded like she couldn’t make herself think clearly. “I — um.”

“Focus, honey. Tell me what to do. It’s what you do best.”

“I can uh — I can take one of the little trackers with me. Hide it. The software for it is already on your computer.”

“Stay calm, Memphis. I’ll come for you. I won’t stop until I find you. I won’t.”

His hand looked like it might rip the gearshift right out of the car when a choked sob came through the speakers.

“Please, Memphis. Don’t cry. I’m still a hundred miles away. How am I supposed to dry those tears?”

The way that his own voice shook with those words split my heart right down the middle. They might not have been able to hear me crying, but the fucking canyon ripping open inside me had to be audible.

“Vance!”

The last word she screamed was his name, and the car screeched to a standstill right in the middle of the road. The strangled noise that came out of him rocked my world like a fucking earthquake.

sixty

JERSEY

“Memphis?” Trista asked through her own sobs. “Memphis?!” She tried again.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t think.

None of my senses worked after she’d used my real name. Screamed my real name that way. A name that I hadn’t heard in years. A plea for help, a plea for safety, and a scorching judgment handed down and burned into my brain for the rest of my life that my decisions had put Memphis in this kind of danger.

How did I keep ending up in this fucking pit from hell? The one where someone ripped apart every fiber of who you thought you could be before they set it ablaze right in front of your own fucking eyeballs? This job was supposed to be the thing that prevented that from happening again. The muscle that was slamming itself against the inside of my ribs right now was trying to tell me that if I got to the point where I blacked out from the anger this time, there probably would be no finding my way back out of it.

Then the person in the car stuck behind me in the middle of the road honked their horn. My eyes went to the rearview mirror.

“Oh, God,” Trista said and reached for my right hand as it went under my left arm.

“No!” She screamed. “Jersey. Jersey! Don’t get out of the car! Wait!”

She was scrambling across the center console after me when she realized I hadn’t even unlocked all of Seph’s doors.

“Stop, Jersey!” She screamed another time. I already had the gun out and was at Seph’s trunk when I could see the absolute fear in the eyes of the man in the other car. She stumbled around in front of me as I raised the gun, placing herself right at the barrel.

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