Skeletons of Us (Unquiet Mind Book 2) (19 page)

Instead, I nodded.

“Well, that’s what I did. Broke something in order to give you the freedom you deserved. That was your destiny.” His voice was gravelly.

The anger that I thought I’d drained from my body returned in an instant.

“I’m not aware you broke any laws when you dumped me the day after I gave you my virginity. Apart from the laws of decency,” I snapped.

Killian flinched. “Not talkin’ bout laws,” he murmured. “Talkin’ ‘bout my heart. My soul.”

I froze at the pain in his words and on his face. It seeped into my bones. “What are you talking about?” I whispered.

He stepped forward. “We were at the precipice of two worlds, Lexie. At a crossroads. You knew it, not that you would have admitted it. You were heading for the stars, with record contracts and a light that shone so bright it couldn’t be tucked away in Amber. It needed freedom, freedom I couldn’t give you. My world was the club. Was Amber. I didn’t know anything else. I couldn’t
be
anything else. And I knew you’d realize that. And because you’re so fuckin’ selfless, you’d extinguish that light. For me. I couldn’t let you do that. I had to let you go, so you could fly and so I could stay in the life that was the only one I could live in without you,” he said, voice rough.

I stared at him. Understanding his words but not the meaning behind them. Not the reasons that worked as some sort of justification that I couldn’t accept. I thought I’d unleashed all my fury with my fists. I discovered I had more to release with my words.

“Since we’re taking a trip down memory lane, do you remember the day I sang you that song and you asked me if I thought you were lost?”

Killian’s eyes went liquid. “I remember every fucking second of my life with you, Lexie.” I could see him calling up the memory of that day, his face contorting in pain. “You said you were lost until you met me,” he choked out.

I ignored the emotion in his voice. I had to. “Well, I was wrong then. You are lost. You’re fucking Peter Pan,” I hissed, anger making my voice unrecognizable. “A fucking lost boy who lives in Amber instead of Neverland, who clutches a cut instead of…
gasp
, growing up. Your club is not an excuse not to
live
, Kill. To stay. To never grow up. That’s not what it is, but you’re treating it like that. Hiding behind it so you don’t have to grow up. God forbid life gets harder than a gun, a cut, and a bike.”

Killian surged forward. One moment he was against the ropes, the next he was in my space. Right in it. Four years. Four years I had dreamed of being this close to him again. Smelling the scent that enveloped me, made me feel safe. Only it didn’t make me feel safe anymore. It shattered me. I scuttled back until I hit ropes. Killian held his arms up on either side of me, boxing me in.

“I’m no boy,” he whispered, eyes blazing. “Four years ago, maybe. A stupid fuckin’ kid. But now, freckles, I’m a
man.
And a man claims what’s his.” He leaned forward so our mouths almost brushed. I held my breath, my entire form shaking.

All I wanted was him to kiss me. All I prayed for was for him not to.

“I may not be a boy any longer, but you’ll always be my girl,” he murmured. “Always.”

The words hung between us, like something tangible, something physical. The power they had certainly felt physical, like someone had punched me in the stomach.

“
Never
,” I whispered in a voice so broken I barely recognized it. Killian flinched and I used this reaction to place both my hands on his hard chest and push. Hard.

“Never again will I be yours,” I shouted once I was a safe distance away. “You took away every single chance of that the moment you ripped my heart from my chest and trampled on it four years ago,” I screeched, breathing rapidly. “Now there’s
nothing
. None of me left for you to own because you took it all away. There’s just an empty body. A skeleton. That’s all we are now, a skeleton of a relationship that’s dead. That you killed.”

Killian’s body was taut as he regarded me, his eyes softening as my voice broke at the end. “Freckles, it haunts me every day that I inflicted so much pain on you,” he whispered. “I’d fight the devil himself to keep any part of you from harm’s way. But the fact I took that from you, maybe means I can bring it back. Bring you back.”

I stared at him. “Bring
what
back, Killian? There’s nothing left to bring back. We can’t go back to how we were four years ago. You made sure of that.”

Killian’s eyes blazed. “I’ll take that. I’ll take every inch of blame and live with it,” he clipped, “but don’t pretend you didn’t have a part in it too.”

My eyes went wide. “
I
had a part in you dumping me the day after I gave you every last piece of me?”

He flinched but didn’t waver. “I told you how much you meant to me for two years, spent every day showing you that. Seven hundred and sixty-eight days I showed you that you were my fuckin’ everything. You let three words convince you of something different. You believed five minutes of lies over two years of truths.”

I blinked rapidly. “What did you want me to do, Killian? Fall to my knees and beg you to love me, right after you told me you didn’t?” I didn’t think about the truth in his words. I couldn’t right now. It was just so much easier to lay all the blame at Killian’s feet. To think I was responsible for the pain that lingered between us was not something I could do right now.

Maybe I was the coward.

He ran his hands through his hair. “I want you to think back and believe in us, Lexie. Fuckin’ remember.”

I did. I remembered every second between us. Every memory I hadn’t allowed myself to think of rushed through me.

“Nothing.
Nothing
would make me forget about you, Freckles.”

“What I’m holding in my hands. Hearing those words, it’s worth the five years of shit. Hell, it’d be worth fifty.”

“I’d promise you anything in the world, but not that. As long as my heart’s beating, I’ll be doing anything and everything humanly possible to keep you from harm.”

“Promise me you’ll remember that. No matter what. How much you mean to me. How you mean everything.”

I wavered and my anger dampened.

Killian stepped forward. “Yeah, I see you’re gettin’ it, babe. You knew then, some part of you knew that I would love you to the day I die. But that same part knew there was no space in your life for me. Not then.”

“That’s a lie,” I hissed. “There was always a space in my life for you. My fucking life was built around you.”

Blue eyes regarded me, swimming the depths of my soul. “Look at what you are, Lexie. Jesus, look at how fuckin’ magnificent you are,” he said, his voice husky. “You had the world at your feet. I wasn’t stopping you from conquering it,” he murmured, eyes looking past me.

I lifted my hand, clutching his chin and turning it, making his icy eyes have contact with mine. “The world at my feet meant nothing without you by my side,” I whispered, tears clogging my throat.

His eyes flickered and I didn’t wait for more words. I couldn’t. Instead, I ducked down and quickly climbed out of the ring, not stopping until I reached the changing rooms. I locked myself in, breathing rapidly. My shaking hands rifled through my bag with urgent desperation.

I jumped as the door I’d just locked rattled.

“Fuck, Lexie. Let me in.”

I ignored this and hoped the lock was strong. My hands found purchase on my phone and I found the name I needed with blurry eyes.

“I need you to come and get me,” I whispered as soon as the person at the other end of the phone answered.

I only prayed he wouldn’t take as long as Killian took to break down that door.

He pounded his fist against the door with frustration. “Lexie, let me in,” he growled for the hundredth time.

There was nothing from the other side of the door. No words or screams that had come out of her like a volcano in the ring. The words that had worked him worse than any opponent had in any ring around the country. They impacted more effectively than any left hook by any angry fighter.

They also gave him hope. Anger and hurt drenched her tiny frame, but something else did too. He didn’t miss the way her small hand had cupped his jaw so tenderly and the last words she’d said to him before she’d run.

“The world at my feet meant nothing without you by my side.”

Those words were the knockout. They had frozen him in place long enough for Lexie to lock herself in the changing rooms of the gym. And because he’d banished everyone from the premises, he couldn’t even find a fucking key.

He rested his head against the steel door. “Baby, please,” he called through the metal.

He would have shot the fucking thing open if he thought there was any danger of her running outside. This gym was in a fucking dodgy neighborhood. It had shocked the shit out of him when they’d pulled up. It pissed him the fuck off, too. The fact that Lexie frequented neighborhoods like this when a murderous stalker was after her?

It might have also had a lot to do with the fact he’d watched her tight body encased in spandex running around the ring with Keltan. Her face was flushed with concentration and Killian couldn’t take his eyes off her.

His dick had been as hard as a rock the moment she’d stepped in the ring.

He didn’t think there was anything sexier than Lexie on stage, singing from her soul straight to his cock. Seeing her in the ring and actually knowing what the fuck she was doing was a close rival.

But it also pissed him off. The fact she knew what she was doing meant she had someone to train her. Maybe had a reason to need to know this shit. If he hadn’t fucked up four years ago, his girl wouldn’t be going to a dive gym in the middle of this neighborhood to learn how to protect herself. He’d be doing that. His job. She sure as shit wouldn’t be training with the man she’d visited in hospital every single day. He’d gleaned from Keltan that Duke and Lexie were friends and training partners.

It drove Killian crazy thinking of what else they were. Duke almost fuckin’ died for her. Killian’s fists had clenched as all those thoughts churned in his brain while he’d watched Lexie and Keltan.

Hence him losing his battle with restraint and banishing everyone from the gym and getting into the ring that had become his sanctuary for the past four years. The place he could unleash his anger and succumb to his demons.

He hadn’t expected Lexie’s demons to win over his own. KO them.

“What the fuck did you do to her?” an angry voice hissed from behind him.

Killian turned, cursing himself for not noting someone that close to him. To Lexie. If it had been anyone but an angry-faced Noah, he’d be fucked. He didn’t even have his piece. He’d stowed it away when he got in the ring with Lexie. Not that he needed it to protect her. But this fucker after her was a coward. Killian didn’t doubt that he’d slit his throat from behind.

He needed to get his shit together.

“What are you doing here?”

Noah glowered at him. “Lexie called me beside herself. You better pray to whatever devil you worship that she’s okay or I’ll make it my mission to end you,” he hissed.

Killian jolted. Not from fear, but from what was in Noah’s voice. Devotion. Different than Sam’s and Wyatt’s. He’d never been threatened by the boys in high school. That was because he’d been so fuckin’ sure of what he and Lexie had and because he knew they respected him enough not to go near Lexie. Plus, they knew he’d kill them if their feelings were anything but fraternal.

Now he’d lost that respect. Years had passed and who knew what feelings had changed. Evolved. It was impossible to spend time with Lexie and not fall in love with her. And Noah fucking lived with her.

Killian clenched his fists.

Noah ignored this. “She in there?” He nodded his head to the door.

He didn’t wait for Killian to answer. “Lex, I’m here,” he called through the door softly.

Almost immediately, the door was wrenched open. Noah yanked Lexie to his shoulder, giving Killian one last glare before directing them out of the gym.

Lexie didn’t look back.

Yeah. She’d knocked him the fuck out. The first person to do that without even landing a punch.