I didn’t make a dent.
Without slowing, she darted back through the laundry room and into the stairwell, her footfalls frenzied as she careened down the steps.
“Salem…please. Listen to me. I have you. I have you.”
“Please, Jud, don’t.” It was the first thing that came out of her mouth, and she tossed it out without looking back as she banged through the bottom door and out into the deepening night.
She ran for the SUV she’d left parked right outside.
“Salem. Don’t.”
I tried to grab her arm. To hold her. To let her know it was going to be okay.
Shaking me off, she pushed the button on the lock and set Juni into the backseat. Her movements were frantic as she strapped the little girl into place.
She slammed Juni’s door and slipped by me while my heart lodged in my shredded throat.
“I’m sorry,” was all she said as she jerked open the driver’s door, refusing to look at me as she did. She started to climb inside.
I took her by the shoulders and spun her around to face me. “I know you’re scared, but I need you to remember right now what you promised—if you get scared, you run to me. Remember, darlin’. Run to me. I’m right here. Right here.”
She squeezed her eyes closed like she couldn’t look at me when she said it, the words ragged when she forced them out. “I’m sorry, I can’t stay, Jud. I can’t. I need to go before it’s too late.”
Agony whipped through the atmosphere.
My guts screamed. But it was my heart shouting louder.
Taking her by the face, I forced her to look at me. Begging her to see. To hear. “I’m in this with you, Salem. You’re not alone any longer. Don’t you see? I have you, darlin’. I have you.”
Her eyes just pressed tighter, girl closing herself off, regressing back to the place where she couldn’t trust. Where her fear reigned, and her hopes didn’t matter. “You have to let me go, Jud. I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Desperate, the confession I’d been trying to deny to myself came blundering out. “I can’t let you go. I can’t. I love you. I fuckin’ love you, Salem.”
It was true.
So fucking true the verity of it nearly dropped me to my knees.
But I had to remain standing.
Hold up this girl.
Because she choked on the agony, and Salem nearly bent in two, falling apart as she surged forward and pressed her face to my chest and curled those hands in my shirt. Clinging to me as if I were a buoy in the raging, toiling sea, she frantically kissed over my heart. I felt the grief and lost dreams leave her on a sob.
She inhaled, breathed me in, then she pushed her hands against my chest to push me away. “Who said anything about love?”
I staggered back.
Salem swayed. Caught in a torrent of sorrow. Her arm shot out to catch herself on the door before she fell, then she swallowed, built a fortress around herself, and jumped into the driver’s seat.
“I’ll figure out a way to repay you for the car. Both of them.” She was facing forward when she said it, cool and robotic and like she wasn’t tearing me apart. Reaching out, she grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut.
My palms pressed to the window. “Salem. Baby, don’t go. You don’t have to do this.”
Could see her frenzied movements as she fumbled to start the car. I banged at the window. “Salem. Don’t. Don’t run away. Run to me.”
My pleas didn’t penetrate, or maybe they made her fight this harder, the way she refused to look at me as she threw the car in reverse. She peeled out as I flew back and stumbled out of the way.
The SUV jolted forward when she put it in drive, tires squealing as she gunned it on the loose gravel.
Like a fuckin’ fool, I ran behind her. “Salem! Salem! Please.”
Salem.
My entire being writhed.
Writhed in fucking agony because my entire world was fleeing.
Running, the way she did. The way she’d promised she would do.
I was a fool.
I had known it in an instant.
The way this girl’d had me tangled in a beat.
Need.
Possession.
Black. Fuckin’. Magic.
Nothing but pure, utter devastation.
And my sweet enchantress’s spell? It finally brought me to my knees.
THIRTY-ONE
SALEM
Tears streamed down my face, blurring my sight until it was impossible to see. A fog of torment blinded and obscured, while white-hot blades of heartache cut and slayed, slicing through the middle of me.
It left that vacancy gaping wide.
I felt like I was bleeding out.
“Salem!” I could hear Jud shouting, his pull yanking at my spirit and rending me in two. “Don’t do this.”
I squeezed my hands around the steering wheel like it could keep me on the right path. Make me remember who I was and what I had to protect my daughter from.