My gaze spends too long in the rearview, waiting for his car to show. It doesn’t, but that doesn’t keep me from tearing down the road.
My grip is hot, my pulse fast. I need to get the fuck out of here.
It’s only once I’ve gotten onto the main road and I’m minutes away from my home that I let myself think of anything other than the need to go faster.
How could I love him? How could I want to love him?
Thoughts run wild in my mind, fighting with each other to be heard. There’s a pounding in my temple and I don’t even realize when I’ve run the red light until a car beeps their horn at me.
Fuck! I have to veer to the right to miss hitting the SUV. A wave of heat flows over my skin, far too hot as my tires squeal and I barely keep my car on the road.
That doesn’t stop me. I keep going. I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I need to go faster. I need to get away.
With my chest heaving, I catch sight of the blood. Oh my God, the blood.
I need to get it off. I need to get this off. Bile climbs up my throat and I have to swallow it as I pull into my driveway. It’s a reckless turn but I don’t care. I need to get inside and get this off.
Get this blood off of me. Get Jase Cross off of me.
It’s all I can think about as I slam the door shut to my car and run to the porch. The gust of cold air brings with it the white mist of an incoming storm tonight.
My hands are still shaking as I search for my key and that’s what I’m staring at when I hear Officer Walsh’s voice. “Bethany?”
The surprise and shock make me scream and drop my keys. They bang as they hit the ground and I stay perfectly still.
“Fuck.” The word is spoken faintly as I stare back at him on the other end of my porch as he gets up from the chair. Like he was waiting for me.
I know my expression is one of fear and guilt, a doe-eyed woman caught in the act of something awful and I can’t change it as our gazes lock.
“Is that blood?” he asks, standing straighter, but with his hand behind him as my feet turn to stone and refuse to move.
“No,” I lie and his head tilts as his hand pushes his coat back and his fingers rest on his gun.
“I didn’t do anything,” I spill the words out, pleading with him to understand. My pulse rages and I can barely stand up straight. Fuck, no. How did this happen?
“Tell me everything. I can help you,” he urges, but it doesn’t sound sincere.
“You have to believe me. It’s not me. I didn’t do anything.”
“Tell me whose blood that is.”
“I don’t know,” I practically shriek.
“It is blood then?” he questions. Immediately, I feel caught. I feel trapped. The bite of the air creeps in, cracking the heat that’s consumed me.
My lips part, but instead of giving him words, all I can do is swallow as my vision becomes dizzy.
“Tell me everything, Bethany; what happened?” His question comes out harder this time and he takes a step forward. I instinctively take a step back and my back hits the wall of the house.
With a trembling voice I whisper, begging him to let me go. “I can’t,” I tell him. “I don’t know.”
My inhale is ragged as he takes another step closer and I have nowhere to go.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this.” Pulling out the cuffs from behind his back, he tells me, “Bethany Fawn, you’re under arrest.”