Page 7 of Rush
She walks away, and this time I don't follow.
I get on my bike and ride back to the clubhouse, my jaw tight and my mind racing.
She's right, I'm being weird. I'm crossing lines I shouldn't cross.
But I can't seem to help it.
Every instinct I've got is screaming at me to keep her close, to position myself between her and anything that might hurt her.
It's the same instinct that got me into trouble years ago; the same need to control, to protect, to contain.
I locked that down in juvie. I learned how to keep it buried.
But Everly makes me want to let it loose.
And that terrifies me more than anything else.
That night, I dream about juvie.
Concrete walls, metal bars, the smell of sweat and fear. Watching my back every second, learning who to avoid and who to align with.
The kid who tried to take my commissary the first week; the way his nose broke under my fist and how I didn't stop until someone pulled me off.
The promise I made to myself after that—never again, never lose control like that again.
I wake up sweating, my heart pounding.
I need to get my shit together. I can't let Everly get under my skin like this, can't allow myself to feel things I've spent years burying.
I get up and go for a run. Dublin’s streets are empty at five in the morning, and the cold air burns my lungs.
I run until I can't think anymore, until my body is too tired to feel anything.
Then I go back to my flat, and I make a decision.
I'm going to do my job. I'm going to keep Everly safe.
But I'm not going to touch her, I'm not going to follow her when I don't need to, and I'm not going to let this thing between us go any further.
I can control this.
I have to.
Because the alternative is unthinkable.
2
EVERLY
Dublin in January is cold as hell, but I love it anyway.
I'm four months into my postgrad at Trinity and I've finally stopped feeling like a tourist. The city feels like mine now in a way South Carolina never quite did.
Too many memories there; too many people who know me as Diesel's daughter first and Everly second.
Here, I'm just another student trying to finish her degree in immunology without losing her mind.
I'm in the lab running PCR samples when Maya leans over my bench. "You coming out tonight?"
