Page 33 of Infinitely Mine
My ears buzzed as everything lost focus for a few seconds. I gripped the edge of the counter and waited for it to pass. I couldn’t afford to lose my shit now.
I operated on autopilot, flipping off most of the lights inside the house. I left the light above the stove and the nightlight in the hall. That was it. For the first time, I wished I had a gun.
By the back door, I pushed a chair against it and piled a bunch of canned goods on top. They would topple and alert me if anyone tried to come in the back.
My fingers wrapped around the knife I had left on the counter, and I walked to the front door, shutting it behind me most of the way, leaving only a couple of inches of space. For hours, I paced the porch, scanned the street and yard, and waited for death to come.
I had to stay vigilant. No one would enter my home.
The porch light remained off. I remembered when I told Mammoth I would always leave a light on for him. Maybe he wouldn’t come over tonight. I wouldn’t have to explain why I planned to leave when the sun rose.
I ran once. I could do it again.
The logical part of my brain argued I could never run far enough. No place would hide me for long. I didn’t care. Survival mode had taken cover.
I sat on the porch swing, clutching that knife so hard I lost feeling in my fingers. When I heard a motorcycle’s heavy rumble on the road, I crouched behind the swing, ready to defend my son with my life.
Chapter 9
No porch light on. That was the first thing I noticed as I turned onto Rowen’s street and rode toward her house. My chest constricted as I worried that I pushed her too hard and too fast. Things heated up quickly between us, but I didn’t sense she had any doubts.
I rumbled to a stop on her driveway and shut off the engine, kicking down the stand on my bike before I lifted off the seat and hung my helmet off the left handlebar. My body stiffened as I sensed something was wrong. My Reaper tried to surface, and I shoved him down, concerned that I would frighten Rowen.
I found her crouched on the porch in the fucking dark with a knife in her fucking hand. She sat on her haunches and stared out into the street. I wasn’t sure if she saw reality or not. She didn’t acknowledge my presence. But,fuck, I could tell something or someone had spooked her.
Real or not, she believed it, and that was all that mattered.
“Ro, baby?” I asked, approaching her with caution.
She didn’t move or blink, focusing that stare as it swept her yard and the empty street.
My hands clenched, and I breathed a few times to calm myself down because I was about to unleash my Reaper. Who the fuck hurt my woman? Was Jacob okay?
I slowly moved around her, entered the house through the open door, and crept through the hall until I reached his room. He slept in his bed, unaware that his mother protected him with a goddamn butcher knife. Was she coherent enough to know that I came inside?
Fuck!
I closed his door and returned to the porch, noticing she hadn’t moved. “Rowen?”
“I see you,” she whispered. “You’re the only one I would let inside.”
Oh, fuck. I’d seen people react like this before when they went into a kind of comatose state, hyper-focused on everything around them. Usually, it resulted from trauma or kicked in with survival mode.
What. The. Fuck. Happened.
“Baby? I’m really worried about you. Can I help?”
“You can’t stop a murderer.”
My body froze. I didn’t know if she meant now or in the past. “Talk to me, Gorgeous.”
“I have to keep watch.”
“Okay. I’m gonna call Grim. We’ll get this sorted.” I ignored the panic clawing at my gut and swiped across the screen of my cell, dialing Grim’s number. “Pres,” I greeted him as he answered with a groggy voice. “We got a situation.”
He cursed. “What’s happening?”
“That’s the thing. I’m not sure, but my woman is holding a fucking knife in the dark on her porch, telling me she’s got to protect her and Jacob from a murderer.”