The Wrong Kind of Love

Just when my life should be about to start, it’s all been taken away.

Pine needles crunch beneath my feet as I trek farther into the woods. And once I get far enough away from Jude’s house I know he can’t see me, I sink to the ground and bury my head in my hands.

I picture my life outside of Jude’s house. Outside of Victoria Devaux. It stretches before me, bleak and lonely and hopeless.

Glancing up, I spot something across the clearing. I swipe at my tears as I push up and make my way toward the three headstones.

Frank Pearson, Claudette Pearson, and Grace Pearson. His family.

I brush my fingers over Grace’s headstone. Where would she be now if Tom Campbell hadn’t killed her? Who would Jude be if he hadn’t lost them? The sight of the three graves is a cold dose of reality. Tom Campbell killed them, and he’s the man who arranged for me to be brought here, to Jude’s house. He’s the reason I can’t go back to my life.

I don’t want to be Sarah Jones. And I don’t want to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, wondering when that psycho will find me and use me to get to Jude.

Screw this. I’m not running. I turn around and make my way back through the woods.

Jude is still on the porch with a fresh cigarette in his hand. “What happened? You get lost?” The smirk on his face infuriates me.

Instead of answering, I take the ID from my pocket and hand it to him. “I’ve worked too hard to be a doctor. I’m not running.”

He takes a slow drag from his cigarette, and damn him for making something so unhealthy look attractive. “Hate to tell you, you’re never getting that back,” he says.

“Oh, I will. Just as soon as you kill Tom.”

He takes another slow pull, studying me. “You have no idea how any of this works. Just because I kill him doesn’t mean you get your life back. You’re dead, Victoria.” He flicks the filter across the yard, then takes the piece of plastic from my hand.

“And when Tom’s gone, I’ll pop up and be undead, Jude.”

A flicker of amusement crosses his green eyes. “You don’t wanna be Sarah Jones? Fine.” He holds the ID between his fingers and folds it in two. “But the sooner you accept you’ll never be Victoria Deveaux again, the better off you’re gonna be.”

That is a reality I refuse to accept. It’s not even my job, really. It’s Lizzy. I hate that I can picture her crying right now, mourning me. “I can’t...” My voice cracks. It feels like I’m on the verge of breaking until he pulls me against his chest, and I cling to him like a liferaft in the stormy sea of my ruined life.

“Give it time, doll. You will.”

Maybe, but in some messed up part of my mind, I don’t want a future or the past. I just want this. Everything else is too hard, too scary. Since when did Jude become safe?

He unwinds his arms from around me, then cups my face in his rough hands. “And just so you know, I was coming after you if you didn’t come back after I finished my cigarette.”

To ask me to stay? Or just to make sure I get to wherever he wants to deposit me safely? His lips brush my forehead before he threads his fingers through mine and leads me into the house.

Caleb looks up from his bowl of cereal when the door closes behind us.

His gaze drops to mine and Jude’s intertwined hands, and Jude promptly pulls away. “Which one of you tore the house up?” Caleb asks.

“She did. And she can clean it up,” Jude says, grumpy as ever as he disappears around the corner of the hallway.

Caleb shovels a spoonful of cereal into his mouth, staring at me as the door to the basement bangs closed. “I knew you two were fucking. And just so you know, that’s messed up.”

“We are not fucking.” I might wish we were…I head for the bottle of liquor on the kitchen counter. I need something to make me forget this day ever happened–and it’s not even noon.

Caleb eyes me from the table before he gets up and brings his bowl to the sink. “You’re fucking,” he whispers, then snatches the bottle from me.

I glare at him as he takes several gulps, then I swipe it back. “Shut up, Caleb.”

God help me, I’m starting to sound like Jude.

***

Caleb and I have been drinking for the past few hours. After the first two drinks, he suggested we move outside, and I didn’t argue. I am tired of being cooped up in that house.

I take a swig then drop the nearly empty bottle of Johnny Walker Red to the grass—and I’m struggling to see straight as I slump down in the lawn chair.