Considering she’d started using around fourteen, and I hadn’t been able to keep her clean longer than a few months since, that’s about the age she still was mentally.
“Yeah, that’d be beautiful,” I said. “But why don’t we do that? Go out and get some window boxes, I mean.”
“And paint?” She beamed up at me.
I laughed. “And paint.”
Grinning, she yanked from my grasp and darted to the foyer. “I’m borrowing your shoes!”
“Of course you are,” I muttered. “But let me get dressed.”
“Alright. I’ll barricade this door real quick.”
I laughed. Since it was the knob for the back door she’d broken, someone would have to go to great lengths to break in. The back yard was fenced in. Granted, the fence was falling apart, but it’d make a hell of a lot of noise if someone tried to hop it.
Flicking on the light switch to my bedroom with one hand, I tugged out my drawer with the other. Jeans and a T-shirt would do the trick. I threw Declan’s clothes on the bed, put on my own, and bent over to step into my sneakers.
As I was halfway through lacing up the second one, a sudden push slammed into my chest. Like I’d just been socked with a baseball bat.
I gasped, grabbing ahold of the dresser for stability.
Then fire.
It felt like the center of my chest was on fire.
Another gasp, this one louder.
I looked down in search of the pain, but suddenly, my hardwoods weren’t below my sneakers.
A sparkling cement floor. A pair of steel toed boots. And a puddle of crimson.
As the pain intensified, Ria’s voice rang out, but she became a dull background throb over the ringing in my ears.
I felt her grab my shoulder, but I was still staring at that cement floor, those steel toed boots, and that pool of red.
Blinking hard, trying to grasp what I was seeing, a hand came into view.
A tattoo.
An ace of spades.
Declan.
I’m seeing through Declan’s eyes.
CHAPTEREIGHT
DECLAN
When Brooke left, I did my usual. Called Mom, talked for half an hour, and went for a run.
Spades wasn’t far from Portland, but it was far enough. The woods around the bar and the house didn’t span hundreds of miles, but a few dozen square acres was plenty for me to get my exercise in. I’d fed last week, so I wasn’t dying for a kill, but some small game would’ve been nice. Unfortunately, though, I didn’t come across any.
That took me to eleven. I got a shower when I was done, grabbed something to eat, and headed to Spades. I left Emory hanging last night, and for that, I was sure he’d been a dick about closing.
I was right. The place was a shit storm. So I got to work.
As I did, my mind wandered.