I have to fight to keep my eyes from trailing down to Tommy’s side. As we continue to stare each other down, I fight past the dull haze I had in the hospital and try to recall seeing Tommy there. Several of the other guys Linus considers worthy were there “keeping an eye on me,” but never Tommy.
“Linus is right,” he says. “You’re PTSDing.”
“Excuse me?”
“Before the alley, you never questioned one of us tagging along. Now you see everyone as the enemy.”
I’m paralyzed by his words, and for the first time I doubt my instincts—doubt myself. I turn and don’t say anything when he walks alongside me again. The world feels disjointed, almost like I’ve been struck.
“Were you really heading to the bar?” he asks.
“No.”
“Heading home then?”
“Yeah.” Lying seems useless, especially since my mind seems to be on a confused loop. My instincts are off—I’m off.
“I’ll give you a lift. Drop off at Hemlock and Orange, right?”
It’s over a mile from Grams’s and it’s still too close to her, but I have a route from there where I’d know if I was being followed. Linus has dropped me off there several times. So has Tommy. Never have they followed. The two of them have always given me my space. “Okay.”
When we reach the edge of the crowd, Tommy edges toward the apartments and I go along with him.
“Car’s parked over here,” he says as an explanation. “Why don’t you let anyone drive you home?”
“Because then you’d want me to ask you in and if I did that then you’d want cookies and if I give you cookies, then you’d want milk, and if I give you milk then you’d want sex.”
“Good point.”
I had been kidding, but then again Tommy is a male. My instincts are off. If my instincts are off how do I survive? “You doing okay? Linus said you took a hit.”
“I was down for a few days.” His lips stretch up, but that’s not a smile. “It’ll take a lot more to keep me out.”
I want to ask if being attacked in that alley jacked up his instincts, but I don’t. The fact he’s the one babysitting me is the answer.
“That alley was messed up, wasn’t it?” I say, testing him. Testing me.
“Went bloody quick.”
“Yes, it did.” We turn right, then left, and we’re thick in the maze of crumbling two-story low-income apartments. Our only light comes from the lone working exterior light by one tenant’s door. My forehead furrows. “How far away did you park?”
“We’ll cut through here and my car’s on the other side.”
That internal warning system—the one that’s kept me safe for so long—it’s screaming and I pause. My hand drops to my stomach in an attempt to halt the nausea churning inside. PTSD. My instincts are off...
Tommy glances around, but stares heavily over his shoulder, the way we were heading. “You okay?”
I breathe out slowly. No, not at all. “How’d you get hurt?”
His eyebrows crunch together. “What?”
“In the alley, how did you get hurt?”
Tommy’s a lefty and his eyes shift right. He’s about to lie.
“Guy surprised me from behind. It was a cheap shot.”
Shots aren’t cheap if they draw blood. He’s looking away, he rubs his nose and my mind almost hurts as I process why he’d be lying. “But how? I heard a lot of shots and I’m the only one who ended up in the hospital...”
A rustle of grass behind me, my hand goes for my knife. A form in all black, except for blond hair. It’s Eric and he’s walking toward us, hands in the air, that forever egotistical expression on his face.
“Wander across the wrong street, Eric?” I ask relaxing, yet still keeping my hand on the hilt of my blade. Doesn’t frighten me to see Eric. By himself he’s nothing more than an annoying fly. It’s the guys that surround him that are terrifying. “Or did you get lost because you explored further than your mommy allowed?”
Tommy pushes past me, shouldering me behind him, and reaches for his gun behind his back. Going caveman like most men do. “This ain’t your territory.”
“Thought the strip where you tried to take me out was neutral territory, but borders appear to be shifting and so do alliances.” He’s still walking toward us. Each step slow and methodical. “How are you, Abby?”
“What do you want?” Tommy has his gun in his hand now, but it’s still behind his back.
Eric stops, cocks his head and goose bumps form on my arms from the evil smile stretched across his face. Appears I’m not the only one the devil likes to dance with. “I want Abby.”
“Sorry, you aren’t my type.”
Eric’s eyebrows lift. “What type is that?”
I glance to my left, then right, the sensation of the walls closing in suffocating me. “I prefer the athletic type. Big, strong. The type that does homework. Maybe doesn’t send people to put bullets in my body. Crazy shit like that.”
Eric nods at each of my descriptions. “You’re saying you’re picky.”
“High-maintenance—that’s me.”
“Come with me, Abby, and this will be easy.”
I glance behind me then, and three of Eric’s boys are coming up behind us. Damn. I whisper to Tommy, “We have trouble.”