Page 66 of Say it Ain’t So

“Will you tell me what happened?”

Her face crumpled and her grip on my hand tightened like she was afraid to let go. For a moment, I was worried she wouldn’t go on. Worried she’d bolt on me and my heart that had been slowly binding itself together would be fractured into a million pieces again.

Joss sucked in a stuttering breath. “I left him. I left Peter.” Her voice was just a whisper as she turned her attention back to me. I could see glimmers of moisture in her eyes. “I was packing my things at his house, and he snuck in and hit my hand with a baseball bat.”

Everything in me wanted to pull her to me, to hold her and promise her it would be okay. But I couldn’t. I needed to know the real story. I needed her to tell me.

She flexed her hand in mine, but when I loosened my grip, she tightened hers once again. “I ran. He was going to kill me. He almost killed my friend when he tried to protect me. But I got out of the house and was driving away, and Peter chased me. Rammed into my bumper and pushed me off the road. My car rolled and landed upside down in a ravine. I fractured my wrist, and I thought I was going to die, Rylan. I thought…”

She swallowed a cry, tearing her eyes away as she tried to hide her face from my view.

I couldn’t let her. I cupped her chin, angling her back so I could see her. So she could see me. “What’d you think?”

Her bottom lip trembled and when she spoke, it was a broken whisper. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

Without warning, Joss jerked forward, tossing her arms around my neck.

“Leaving you was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. The only thing worse was staying with Peter.” She sucked in a breath, and it stuttered as she let it out. “I was scared. So scared.”

Not wrapping my arms around her wasn’t an option. I held her to me, but I couldn’t speak. I needed her to tell me what happened. And what the fuck I did wrong.

“I was scared of how you made me feel. Of what it would take to get away from Peter. I grabbed my things and left you, even though everything inside of me told me it was wrong. But I needed to get away from him, Rylan. I couldn’t stay with him anymore, and I couldn’t be with you until his hold over me was gone.”

His hold over her.

After Van showed me the articles telling what happened to her that night, I hadn’t stopped digging. I may have gone home, but only to get on my own computer to find out more about Peter Wright and Joslyn Ward.

He was nothing more than white trash, polished to uphold the name of his crooked as hell, piece of shit father. A man who, for all his good deeds, had a thousand skeletons knocking at his closet door.

Battery and attempted murder were just two of the misdeeds Peter and his father had in common. The corruption of the Wright family was so blatant and widespread, it was a wonder more people in their town didn’t point it out.

“Peter was arrested,” Joss continued, but only after her quiet cries had calmed, “but he was out of jail before Dakota even got out of the hospital. I had to hide. My best friend, Chey, had offered to let me stay with her, but Peter figured out where she lived and started harassing us both. He threatened to kill me. He said he’d finish what he started when he broke my hand, and I didn’t even make it to my final appointment to get my cast off before I had to run away.”

“The police wouldn’t do anything?”

She shook her head before burying her face against my chest. “They wouldn’t listen. Every time I called the cops, they showed up at Chey’s apartment with threats to arrest me for making false accusations against him. His dad had the police in his back pocket and there was no getting away. It was either stay there and die or cut ties with everyone I loved and run.”

“Jesus, Joss.”

“I didn’t know how to find you. But I remembered telling you I always wanted to come to Chicago. So I moved here and changed my name to the one I gave you, and I begged the universe to bring you to me.”

The universe.

She begged the universe.

Things started falling into place, things I hadn’t spent the time to figure out but that pecked at my unconscious like that damn bird pecked at the window.

On every table of Joss’s apartment, on nearly every shelf, sat stones of different sizes and shapes. Near the door, a hunk of jagged black stone sat beside a green one that looked like the jade at the cash register at my favorite Chinese restaurant. On the coffee table in the living room, a giant purple stone sat on a round, white disk. Over in the kitchen, a handful of orange and yellow crystals were clustered on the counter. And in her bedroom, there were stones in purple, brown, and pink.

The oddest of them all was sitting next to the fish tank—another disk with lines etched upon it, different colored stones sitting at points around the circle.

“Are you a witch?” It would certainly explain how she’d stolen my sanity from the moment I first laid eyes on her.

Joss laughed, and the sound had the corners of my mouth tilting up. “I’m not a witch.” She smoothed her hands up my chest, bringing her palms up to cup my cheeks. “But even if I was, I would have asked for you.”

I lifted one eyebrow, peering down at her bewitching face. “And the stones?”

That laughter again. She stole my fucking mind. “Crystals. I use them for meditation.” Her smile dropped. “It’s the only thing that helps my anxiety after the accident. Well, that and my fish tank and Frank.”