Run From Me (Barbed Wire Hearts #2)

2. Calliope

TWO

calliope

The music blaring in my headphones helped me ignore the quiet of the morgue. I spent more time here alone than I was legally supposed to, I’m sure. Oh well. What else did I have to do?

This was just another double shift. Anything to keep me distracted from my own life by seeing how others ended.

I shook my head and tried to focus. Poor asshole on the table had a heart attack. Really, nothing exciting. But at least he didn’t have to worry about how much worse life could get. And it could get so much worse. Maybe that was the allure to this job? Someone else was having a much worse day than I was having. Which really said something.

My lungs ached for a deep breath, but I’d have to wait when the scent of bleach overpowered the scent of death.

“Alright.” I looked down at his paperwork. “Mr. Johnson. I rule you a natural death. I’m not sure that’s how you wanted to go out.”

The last stitch was in place, so now I could just push his ass back into the fridge and wait for the mortuary to come get him.

“At least it was peaceful. Bye, Mr. Johnson, see you on the other side.”

The door clicked shut with a small coax of my hand.

Now I had to send a damn text. What the hell made me think asking Xander would be a good idea? I’d been to several Spector run clubs and nothing had ever happened. Rylee wouldn’t allow it. It was all the damn fumes going straight to my last few brain cells.

First things first. I needed to wash my hands. Latex gloves were fine, but it was the only other smell that could make me vomit anymore. I hated the odor they left on my skin, even if it was supposed to be better than dead guy smell.

The water splashed in the metal sink, sprinkling over my lab coat as I poured on the soap and scrubbed like I could rid myself of the smell any more than I could rid myself of the Vipers that stalked my every move.

There. That was why I’d asked Xander. I wanted to be free to make at least one damn choice they couldn’t do a damn thing about.

My heart jumped at the squeak of the morgue door. Xander. It had to be. I threw on a smile, but actually, it wasn’t all that hard to smile for him. Big, scary man with the most unreal green eyes. I’d tried not to notice over the trash and dead bodies a few weeks back, but he was impossible to ignore.

“Hey—”

The rest of my words were cut off by two familiar and unwanted arms wrapping around me. Fucking hell.

“Hey there, beautiful.”

I swallowed back the vomit his presence always seemed to elicit.

“Ripple, what are you doing here? I checked in already.”

His hands slid from holding me to groping me. I threw an elbow, but at this point it was pointless. He was ready for damn near every self-defense move I’d been taught in the few classes I’d been able to attend between working and hiding from the Vipers.

“Yeah. You did, beautiful. I just missed your sweet little ass.”

I closed my eyes and tried to envision my happy place as he licked the side of my face.

“Mr. Johnson was real juicy; hope you enjoy the splatter that squirted on my cheek earlier.”

He snarled something unintelligible as he grabbed my upper arm and pulled me around to face him.

“Fuck, you are such a bitch.”

I smiled like there was an ounce of confidence or sanity left inside me.

“Yeah. And it’s what keeps you coming back, even though I wish you wouldn’t.”

He smirked and stepped back, looking around the morgue.

“I hear there’s a big party for the Spectors. You wouldn’t happen to be going, would you?”

I swallowed.

“Why would I go?” I asked.

He pulled out a blade and started to flip it open and closed.

“You’re friends with the new Spector head whore, aren’t you?”

Ripple asked like he didn’t already know.

“What do you want, Ripple? I need to change. No one likes uninvited intestines at their wedding reception.”

Fucking hell. I looked at the clock. The reception was about to start, and Rylee had begged me to come. She didn’t know my mess of a life and I liked her. I liked pretending I could have that fairy tale. Someone who worshipped me enough to kill.

“Need a date, beautiful? Boss would really like for a Viper to be present at this reception.”

My stomach soured.

“I, uh, I already accepted a date. Besides, I don’t think they would welcome a Viper. Or maybe I really don’t have any idea how your little tiff works, anyway.”

He looked around the room.

“Sweetheart, Ripple here is a much better date than any of these stiffs.”

I rolled my eyes.

“It’s always such a turn-on when you talk about yourself in third person. Besides, I am not dragging any of these bodies to a party. But thanks for thinking I might have a thing for necrophilia,” I said and took a few steps forward, attempting to look like I wasn’t on edge as I ran a finger over his cheek. “I’m sure they would all be better lays than you would, though.”

I smirked right before the burn across my cheek brought a tear to my eyes.

“Fuck you, you bitch. Maybe it’s time for old Ripple to show you just how I fuck,” he said.

I sucked in a breath and waited for some kind of assault. He never went that far, no matter the threat. I was valuable, and the Vipers would kill him if something happened to me. Thank god I had one bit of worth in this fucked up world.

Somehow, while I was stuck in my fight-or-flight mode, I’d missed the squeak of the doors, but after Ripple was flung across the room and a table of tools clanked and clattered to the tile floor, I followed the mess to the culprit. What the hell had happened?

I froze as Xander stood, no towered over Ripple, who was slumped on the ground. I held my breath until I heard Ripple exhale a groan. He wasn’t dead, and I couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing.

“Call her a bitch one more time, and I’m pretty sure there is an open bay down here for your fucking Casper wanna-be ass,” Xander said.

Xander didn’t bother waiting before he closed the distance separating us.

“You okay there, Sparky?”

My brain misfired with the way he was looking at me. HIs hand raised, and that made me flinch back though. At least self-preservation worked in the presence of this god.

“Woah. I won’t hurt you, Cali. I’m looking at this shiner the pasty bitch over there left on you. Sorry I wasn’t a few seconds quicker,” Xander said.

All I wanted to do was listen to him talk. His voice was so deep and soothing. I’d always found the thump of the bass of music to be calming, but I think that I missed how much more calming a voice like his could be.

“I’m fine. Nothing a little makeup can’t fix.”

We both looked over to where another clatter came from. Ripple was getting up, but not empty-handed.

“You get away from her. She’s my bitch. The Vipers own her,” he spat.

I’d read things about how a man’s eyes could grow dark and menacing, but I’d always thought that was a metaphor. Xander, however, gave me the most perfect image of what it looked like. I should have been scared rather than my panties dampening.

The way the muscle right above his jaw flexed as his face darkened had to be almost as sexy as that V men had right above their jeans.

“She is no one’s bitch,” Xander said, his voice dangerously quiet.

He turned back toward me.

“Are you a Viper?”

He pulled my hair aside and moved the coat down my arm, exposing most of my skin since I only had a tank on.

Loaded question, and I didn’t know how to answer.

“She’s indebted to us. Doesn’t fucking matter if she is or isn’t. She ain’t going nowhere.”

Xander’s eyes studied my face, looking for something. Probably for me to say no or to refute the answer. Instead, like an idiot, I nibbled on my lip and shrugged.

“I don’t have their mark. I’m not a pledge. I am what he says, indebted. You can thank them for this.”

I lifted the hem of my shirt and showed him the little burn. Not a Viper tat, but a brand from a ring, which their fearless leader thought would be hilarious.

“Motherfucker. They did that to you?”

I pulled the hem back down, but he fought me and ran his fingers over the small circle with a V.

“Yeah. Long story.”

His eyes met mine. His fingers still danced over the healed scar.

“Your choice?”

I shook my head and yanked at the shirt.

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” I wasn’t really asking a question as I shoved him away.

“Hey, Ripple. You planning on living up to that namesake and leaving a wake of ripples as you destroy the city morgue?”

Deflect whatever this feeling was, that was the only thing that seemed logical. I could ignore my own feelings with the best of them.

“Bitch,” was all Ripple said as I blinked and Xander’s fist squarely nailed him in the face. Ripple’s head whipped back, and he lost his balance, slamming into the lockers. I smirked at no one but myself. Good thing everyone was already dead or this might have caused some heart failure because, fuck.

Xander sticking up for whatever honor he thought I still had was sexy as hell.

He glanced at me over his shoulder, and my mouth went dry at the way he looked at me.

It was like he saw someone worth actually looking at.

It was like he saw me.

“Shall we go?” Xander asked.

I blinked.

“What? Oh, right.”

I’d forgotten all about Rylee’s reception.

“Wait,” Ripple said, his voice a lot more nasally than before.

I pulled up my big girl panties and gave Ripple the sweetest eat-shit grin I could muster.

“I’ve got things to do, Ripple. As I said before. I already checked in.”

Red dots decorated my nicely bleached floor. Fucking hell.

“Maybe clean up after yourself before you tuck your tail and run back to daddy dearest,” I said.

Ripple tried to growl, but it just sounded pathetic. Funny how things just weren’t all that scary anymore when you had a lot less to lose.

“We own you, Calliope.”

I paused, turning to face Ripple.

“And the devil owns you lot. Hasn’t stopped you from being a giant pussy.” I turned back to the door.

“You can’t go off with him. He isn’t one of us. You’re putting me in a bad situation,” Ripple said.

My hands shook as I unbuttoned my white lab coat and moved to hang it before stopping near the hook on the wall. If I turned around, Xander would see how hard I was trying to hide just how tired I really was of being the yes-woman for the Vipers. I wanted to be in control of my life, and there was no reason I couldn’t be.

Breathing in and out was some kind of bullshit the yoga instructor swore would keep me grounded. I snort-laughed to myself. Yoga. Fuck, I stuck out like a sore thumb there. Still, it really seemed to give the Vipers something to gawk at. I just needed to keep busy all the damn time.

Still, I blew out a breath and envisioned something happy. Puppies, knives, blood, and Xander shirtless. My face heated at that last thought.

“Ripple, nowhere, and I mean nowhere, in the contract did it ever say I had to date one of the Viper ass hats.” I turned on my heel and looked up, catching Ripple’s watering eyes with mine.

“It puts you and me in a real bad place, bitch. Contract my fucking ass. No one had you sign shit. You sold your damn soul, and we are so much worse than the fucking devil,” Ripple said, spitting blood on that last syllable.

Xander stopped next to me, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the cords of muscle in his neck. I could see the subtle way he flexed his hands. All I could do was put my hand on his chest to stop him from starting some kind of war that might not be all that great for my life.

“Putting you and me in a bad place? You, maybe. But I am not putting myself in a bad place. So pardon me while I say this with all my heart. Fuck off, Ripple.”

I turned away from the mess that would still be here in a few hours if the cleaning crew never got to it. I was on call since the last guy quit. Or had been murdered. Whatever. We were really down to me again.

I spun on my toes and slammed my fists against the swinging doors, stepping out into the dimly lit office-like front desk and continuing out into the hallway.

Xander called after me, but if I stopped, I might have a moment to really rethink my fuck up of a life.

“Cali? Wait up.”

I flipped him off, but not because I hated him. More because, well, I was just fucking angry at all men right now.

“You’ve got long legs, you’ll be fine.”

And he was. Less than a second later, he was next to me, keeping pace. It was hard not to side-eye him even if I was trying to pretend like I didn’t see just how good looking he was.

Fuck, he was huge.

“You ready then? For the party?”

Ready?

I stopped and laughed at the question.

“I smell like death. Not that you lot aren’t all into that and stuff, but I prefer not to wear my work to a party. I live a block up from here. Walk me there?”

Shit. What was I doing?

Somehow, I had decided this devil was far safer than the demons chasing me.

The shadows in my past had done a number on me if I thought his hands weren’t more red than any of the Vipers who haunted me.

The thing was, the way he smiled at me? It could have been a skeezy look that said he thought he would get lucky. It could have been mocking, like Ripple might have been. It could have been a look that said he thought he was some kind of hero.

He knew he was none of those things. With that fire in his eyes? He was anything but my savior.