Lili Germain - Four Score

I am afraid.

There, I said it.

Terrified, anxious, strung out, waiting for my lies and my past to come crashing down around me.

The thing that terrifies me the most? It isn’t Dornan owning me, or Jase hating me, or even dying.

No, I am not terrified of death. I came close enough to it once that I know it intimately. Death itself is not what terrifies me.

I am afraid that I’ll never feel alive again.

I used to pray, even though I’m not a religious person. I’d lie on the grass in the backyard beside Elliot in Nebraska, and stare up at the millions of bright stars that I’d never been able to see through the smog of L.A. It was beautiful, and it was terrifying.

I used to wish on those shimmering stars that one day, I’d be free. That I’d feel alive again. And the most terrifying thing is that in Dornan’s arms, reliving his grief and his loss as I kissed his tears, was the only place I felt truly vindicated.

It’s so terrifying I can barely even talk about it, but that’s my fear.

That, once Dornan is finally dead, I still won’t feel any different.

That I’ll still be the ghost girl who’s dead inside.

Sometimes that fear is almost too much to bear.

“Juliette. Juliette.”

Jase’s mouth on mine, drowning out my little sobs, forcing quiet my sighs. Kissing me like he wants to devour me.

The way he keeps repeating my name. My real name.

Part of me wants to surrender completely, to melt into his arms and stay there forever, but another part of me, screaming inside my head, needs to know how he found out? How the hell did he figure out who I am?

An image of Dornan flashes into my mind and I momentarily cringe. He’s in a coma, so I’m safe for the moment. But I need to know how Jase discovered my secret, and if anyone else in the club knows.

I have to know if I need to disappear, before someone else makes me vanish … permanently.

Jase’s rough fingers skate along my collarbone, as his lips continue to press against mine, greedy and sweet. I’m crying and he’s crying and it’s like all of my dreams and all of my nightmares have been realized in one messy, beautiful moment.

I’m elated. I’m devastated. But mostly, I am afraid.

With shaking hands I manage to push him back so that we are eye to eye. I’m still crying, and his eyes are shining, too. I’m sitting on the concrete, my legs out in front of me. Jase kneels and straddles me.

That’s when I see it, that first spark of anger light up on his face. I see it seep into his relief, probably even before he knows it’s there. His mouth twitches—his lips are still damp from mine—and his smile slowly fades as we continue to stare at each other.

I knew it would come. I was waiting for it, but seeing it there makes me so incredibly sad.

He stands, offering a hand out to me. I take it, my legs aching as he hauls me back to my feet. My ears are ringing from the bomb blast back at his grandfather’s house and I’m dizzy. I step back, letting go of his hand, and lean on the trunk of his car.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he growls through clenched teeth.

I tear my gaze away from him, looking out to the street beyond the crumbling walls of the hospital parking lot.

“Julz?” he snaps.

I turn my eyes back to him and shrug. “Because you would have made me stop. And I can’t stop until it’s finished.”

“You could die,” he says, his hands balled into fists. “We both could. I thought you were already dead, for Christ’s sake. And you’re here, tempting fate a second time?”

I set my jaw stubbornly. “It’s too late to think about things like that.”

He steps forward, his fingers wrapping around my wrist. “We have to go,” he says. “You need to get away from here before anyone in the club figures out what the hell you’ve done.”

He pulls at my arm but I don’t budge, and that’s when things get really fucking scary.

“No,” I say.

“What?”

“I want to see him,” I say, shrugging his hand away.

He roars in frustration, completely invading my personal space as he presses himself against me, pinning me to the car again. It shouldn’t scare me because this is what I expect. It’s what I deserve — his wrath, his fury — so it shouldn’t scare me, but for some inexplicable reason, it does.

“What is wrong with you?” he hisses. “You want to see him?”

I push at his chest angrily, but he doesn’t budge. If I had heels on, I’d stomp on his foot to get him to back up, but I’m barefoot and covered in a fine film of dust and debris, thanks to Elliot’s bombs in Dornan’s gas tank.

“Back up,” I say. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

He just smirks, continuing to hold me. “You haven’t changed a bit,” he bites out, his eyes ablaze. “You’re still as fucking stubborn as you were the day I met you.”

The day I met you. I can’t let my mind go there right now. I just can’t.

“Get off me or my knee gets real intimate with your dick,” I threaten, taking my fingers and squeezing them around his wrists, digging my fingernails in deep enough to draw blood.

He doesn’t even flinch.

“You don’t want to hurt me,” he says. “I can see it on your face, Juliette. You won’t hurt me to get to him.”

“I don’t want to,” I say, continuing to dig my nails into his flesh. “Doesn’t mean I won’t.”

“Juliette!” he barks. “Quit it! Just get in the goddamn car and give up your little vendetta for two seconds!”

I open my mouth to say no, but before I can, movement catches the corner of my eye. I turn my head to the left, where a sea of cars spread out beside the hospital building, and fight the urge to scream.

There’s a guy standing there, watching us.

A guy wearing a leather cut.

A goddamn Gypsy Brother.

Jase steps back quickly as he notices the guy, his fingers firmly around my forearm. I wince as he squeezes hard, and I sincerely hope that it’s a stronghold designed to protect me rather than to imprison me.

“Juliette?” the guy sneers, coming closer. “John Portland’s Juliette? Bullshit. That dead little whore was a blonde.”

I open my mouth before I can even think about denying it. “It’s called hair dye, motherfucker.”

His mouth curls up into an ugly grimace, and he raises his eyebrows in an amused expression. “Oh yeah. Now I recognize you. John’s little bitch. You look pretty fuckin’ good for a dead girl.”

My father’s name on his mouth is like blasphemy. Bile rises in my throat and my thoughts begin to race as it becomes very clear that I’m no longer in control of this situation.

He knows. He’s going to kill me.

I don’t have a weapon. I don’t even have fucking shoes. My ears are ringing from the blast, and I’m cold and tired and hungry, and this fucker knows.

“Jimmy,” I address my father’s traitorous friend with so much vitriol, I can practically see it floating in the air between us.

His steel-capped boots crunch on the leaf-littered concrete as he approaches us. Jase has eased away from me, and we stand side by side. I sneak a glance at Jase and am surprised to see him eyeing me smugly.

That worries me. Does he know something that I don’t?

Did he know Jimmy was going to be here?

Whose side is he on, anyway?

“Let me guess,” Jimmy says, his footsteps getting closer. “You’ve got something to do with this little disaster. Dirty bombs in fuel tanks, really? That’s a low blow, killing a man when he’s riding.”

I narrow my eyes, inching closer to Jase. “It’s a low blow killing a man for trying to leave.”

Jimmy laughs, a throaty noise that reverberates around the cavernous parking lot.

“That’s not why he was killed,” Jimmy replies, “and we all know it. You take something that doesn’t belong to you, and you pay the price.”

I roll my eyes. “If you’re talking about Mariana—”

“I’m talking about the fucking money,” he spits, only three steps separating us now. “I’m talking about him trying to take Dornan’s son.”

He flicks his gaze over to Jase, a look of distaste evident as he assesses him.

Which is when I act.

I don’t even think. I react to the small window of opportunity I’ve been given. Without tearing my gaze from Jimmy, I wrench my arm free from Jase’s grip and reach my hand into the back of his waistband. I pluck the gun from the space between his warm skin and denim jeans, and raise it to Jimmy’s smug face.

The smug look vanishes from his face, only to be replaced by bitter loathing. I smile cruelly, the gun heavy in my steady hand.

“You always were too slow, Jimmy. That’s why they made you low rank, remember?”

Jibing him about his low status in the club despite his years of service works an absolute charm. I can practically see the steam billowing from his ears.

I place my finger on the trigger of the gun. “Reckon you can close your eyes before I blow your head off?” I ask him, a shit-eating grin plastered on my face. Jimmy’s lip curls up, and he opens his mouth to say something when I’m violently slammed against the car by the one person I thought would back me up.