“Drew?” I asked gently, not wanting to startle him.
His head snapped in my direction anyway, his blue-green eyes wide and framed by splattered blood that coated his face like someone had flicked the ends of death on him with a paint brush. His leg tweaked up and down furiously, but he never looked away. He just let me stare at him. Taking in every inch of it in.
I slid inside the room, my back against the wall as I pushed the door closed. No one else needed to witness this. His wild eyes were so feral that I just watched him, unmoving, waiting for some sign that my Drew was still behind that cold stare.
“Everything okay?” I asked, in the most normal tone I could call from my trembling body.
“Does it look okay?”
“No. It looks anything but.” I paused and took one step closer, my eyes searching the drying blood to see if there was a wound below it. “Is any of that blood yours?”
He shook his head once, his eyes following mine likeIwas the enemy. “Not a single fucking drop of it belongs to me.”
“Thank God,” I spoke before really thinking about the implication of my statement. Taking another step forward, I watched his hands continue to move, an old rag rubbingagainst the barrel of his Glock, coming away with smudges of red. He barely noticed. He was still tracking my slow movement as I moved farther from the wall. “What can I do to help?”
“What can you do to help?” His brows rose. “You want to make coffee? Sandwiches? Talk about this? My feelings?” Drew shook his head, clipping his snark with his teeth. “Fuck…” he suddenly hissed.
He chewed the inside of his mouth, his head still shaking as he narrowed his eyes even more at me.
“Look at me, Ayda.Fucking look at me!”
“I am looking, Drew,” I kept my voice calm and took another step toward him. “I’m looking, and I see.”
“And if you’re okay with what you see, you’re even more fucked up than I am.” He looked down at his gun, dismissing me altogether. His jaw was ticking, the thoughts about himself or whatever had happened taking over. He was anywhere but there with me. He wasn’t my Drew.
I moved closer, my steps a little faster now his attention was on his hands, and the gun.Gun. I was walking toward a frantic man who was unrecognizable and holding a gun in his hands. I was moving to him. Not away. I should have left him alone, but there was an alarm inside my head, warning bells screaming that if I turned away now—if I left the room or left him alone—I would lose him forever. This was the turning point. I could feel it in every part of my body, which was exactly why I was gravitating toward him.
“Drew.”
It was like a goddamn pattern. His name again, just his fucking name, but I knew he was reading between the line of every last syllable I wasn’t saying. That I was too afraid to say.
His hand froze over his gun, and he moved the second he thought I was too close, sliding off the bed and walking backward. Drew’s eyes were crazy wild as they blazed with a fire that reminded me of the first version of him I’d met.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” He stopped when there wasn’t anywhere left for him to go. His body straightened out, pushing him to his full height, and I saw the mess of evidence left on his skin and clothes. So much blood, visible even against the black. The white threading on his well-worn presidency badge was now tainted with dark pinks, streaking browns, and nauseating reds.
I was trying so hard to hide the trembling of my body and the violent shaking of my hands. Drew was so lost in his own head, in the horrors of what he’d just been through, I was struggling to reach past those walls and find him.
“How can you look at me that way now? How the fuck can you say my name like it’s all okay?”
“Because you’re alive. You’re here.” I swallowed back the sting of tears in my eyes and stepped closer to him, pushing myself through the fear that was trying to take control. “You’re breathing, and that’s the only thing that means anything to me right now.”
Drew looked down at my moving feet, then back up at me. “I’m alive, but others aren’t. They’re dead. They’re cold, rotting six-feet beneath dirt.” His bloodshot eyes searched mine as they narrowed and darkened, and he took a step closer. “But it’s okay, ‘cause I’m alive, right? You like me dangerous, do you, baby? Is this the man youreallywant? The man you get to fuck isbad, and that’s what gets you off?”
I blinked and shook my head. Somehow, I was managing to keep my voice calm, placid and reassuring, even when Ifelt utterly panicked in my head. Even when my heart was thundering in my chest with so much fervor my head was swimming. Even when my legs were reluctant to hold me up.
“Stop trying to push me away.”
“I’m not trying to push you anywhere. I’m trying to wake you the fuck up.” He continued to walk closer, his towering form soon hovering over me until I was too close to death.
“I’m wide awake, Drew. I’ve never been more awake in my life.” I could inhale that coppery smell of blood on him as I dragged my eyes up his chest to his stubbled jaw and finally met those beautiful eyes. Eyes that were so close to being completely devoid of emotion, I mourned the life in them. “I fucking love you. You and I both knew that I understood what came along with this ring, and I’m not fucking changing my mind.”
He leaned closer, his face only an inch away from mine. “Stop,” he warned in a cold whisper.
“I love you. I’m never going to stop that.”
“Your love isn’t doing me any favors. Your love is feeding the killer in me. I need you to hate me.” He curled his lip, his disgust at himself, even though it was aimed at me. “Your ridiculous need to love me when I’m wrong will lead to bad things, don’t you see? This is just the beginning. This is just the rolling mist, the warning before the storm.” He bared his teeth to me, his face so close to mine, there wasn’t anywhere left for either of us to go. “Hate. Me.”
I pushed onto my toes, my lips practically resting against his as his harsh breaths washed over me in the waves of the rage that swirled around him. For the first time since I’d fallen in love with him, I realized just why I’d been put in his path. Why I’d been chosen for him.