Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 174623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
"Thanks," I say. "Gonna start my downtime."
I leave the conference room, heading toward my room, with every intention of getting some sleep.
My brain has other ideas, keeping me awake even though I haven't been to sleep in over twenty-four hours.
It's been a very long time since something really got my blood pumping.
It didn't happen when Travis Shaw showed up at Juniper House.
Hell, I bet my pulse was steady on that last raid I did in Tennessee.
Doing my job doesn't get the adrenaline running.
Protecting Juliet Mercer is part of my job, and today, seeing her shaking, terrified, tears running down her face, heightened every part of my body. My heart pounded in my chest. My palms grew sweaty while my mouth turned to ash. Every muscle in my body tightened.
She was so incredibly freaked out that she couldn't breathe, and my first instinct was to figure out if I could give her the breath in my lungs to ease her hardship.
I've been on a lot of missions.
I've put a lot of evil men in the ground.
I've been aroused by a beautiful woman.
I've faced some incredibly tough choices, including the situation leading up to my father's death.
Not once in my life can I pinpoint a time when I have felt so fixated on someone the way I did earlier today.
I have no answers, no cognitive reasoning that would explain it.
Why her?
Why this situation, specifically when I've faced many like it before?
This is the shit that keeps my eyes open and my brain incapable of shutting down.
I check the Cerberus app on my phone more than once as the time ticks by, only to see no additional news.
I check the Juniper House extension in the app, but it's quiet on that front as well.
There are no notes from their end about the incident, nothing explaining why a song would make her have a severe panic attack at a red light… nothing.
I know she's still on shift because she hasn't logged her exit for the day.
I look back at the logs for Cerberus, noting that our guy out front hasn't noted her leaving in case after the morning she had, she forgot to clock out.
The sun is fading in the sky when my phone alarm goes off, telling me my six hours are over.
I hesitate to move other than turning the alarm off, despite being anxious as each second ticked away.
I've come a long way in understanding myself, and my urgency to see her, to make sure she's safe, is leaning more toward obsession and further away from duty with each interaction I have with her, including just watching her walk to her car and checking to make sure it's safe to open the door.
I'd never mention these feelings to Slick. Doing so might trigger something that keeps me from seeing her.
Another fucking thing that is a bright red flag for obsessive behavior.
Instead of sitting on my bed and having some sort of fucking existential crisis, I stand and head into the bathroom for a quick shower, purposely trying to wipe the memory of fear in her eyes from my mind.
I fail.
But I think when I set that goal up for myself, I knew I would.
I towel off and dress quickly, making sure not to look a single person in the eye as I leave the clubhouse.
The folks here don't normally keep an eye out, tracking who's coming and going, but if anyone was going to question where I was going, I feel like today might be the day.
I make it to the parking lot, onto my bike, and a few minutes later off the property without having to interact with a single person, exactly how I like to spend my time.
I arrow my bike right to Juniper House. I don't make a detour. I don't take an alternate route like Juliet hinted that she does.
It takes fifteen minutes on a regular ride to get there, but I know I could make it in a fraction of that time if I were needed in a hurry. It still seems like too long. The distance is too great for me to keep her safe.
I don't interact with the guy standing out front, and he makes no effort to engage with me either. I simply sit on my bike, parked in front of Juliet's car, and wait, the time ticking by just as slowly as it did last night when I sat in the parking lot at her apartment.
It doesn't feel like wasted time, but even if it did, it's not like I have a single other pressing matter to deal with.
Another forty-five minutes inch by before the front door opens, revealing her still terrified eyes.
She looks all over, eyes darting side to side as if she expects her monster to pop out of the bushes and grab her while the Cerberus member just stands and observes.