“Ooooh! Is Evan getting all anxious?” I chuckle.
He spins around, placing the coffee on the table and pulling some of his wipes out of his top drawer and crouching down, cleaning the coffee up.
“You know what will happen if I don’t clean this up? It’ll get sticky and then ants will come inside and—”
“Yeah, yeah.” I wave him away. “I know, I know!”
“Kitty!” Ty barks and I turn around to face him.
“Yeah?”
“In here, now.”
He spins around and storms back into his office and I follow him, pulling off my gloves as I go.
“Sup, Boss?”
He stays silent as he sits in his office chair, playing a drumbeat with his fingers on the wooden desk and watching me with those stupid chocolate brown eyes, the same eyes as Charlie’s.
“What’s going on with you?”
“Me?” I point to my chest. “Nothing.”
He stares at me silently for so long that I start to shuffle in the chair and look away. I never look away, dammit!
“You’re on edge.” He raises a brow, waiting for me to say something and when I don’t, he relents. “Fine. Stop winding Evan up, he’s busy.”
“Got it!” I jump up and start to walk out of the office.
“And, Kitty?”
“Yep.” I spin back around.
“Go get a shower and a nap, you look like shit.”
“Well, gee, thanks, Boss.” I wink at him and stick my tongue out at Evan as I walk through the warehouse, making my way back to my cottage.
I take a quick shower and dress in my work gear, grabbing my boots and sitting in my chair in the living room.
I shove my feet into them and look up out of the window, spotting Ty, Kay, Luke, and Evan all standing in the middle of the compound.
My chest rises and falls as I watch them. I feel like I’m not one of them anymore. However much things have been going right lately, I can’t stop the voice in my head that tells me I can’t run as fast as them anymore, I can’t handle what I used to. I mean, damn, I can’t even stand the sight of my own gun, Betty.
I reach down the side of the chair and pull out my pill bottle, lining six pills up on the table and staring down at them.
My eyes move from the pills to the window and for a second I think about not taking them, but the tremor in my hand and the gasp of breath I take when that thought occurs tells me that I need to take them. To be normal, to feel normal.
I can’t do what I do without them, I know that now. I tell myself that I’ll stop tomorrow, this will be the last six.
I promise myself, meaning it this time. No more after this. No more.
My leg bobs up and down as we sit watching the senator’s house. I followed the paper trail, not being able to stop until I knew I had a solid lead.
What I thought would be good for me, getting a politician arrested for corruption, has turned into an obsession, a nightmare. All I’ve been able to think about is my father, of how things were when I was growing up. I can’t get the memories out of my head and the more pills I take to help drown them out, the more I seem to remember.
“Katherine, I need you to be on your best behavior tonight,” my father says, lifting the expensive crystal tumbler to his lips and downing the whiskey in one. His light brown eyes meet mine, the same eyes that he passed down to me. Only his hold a sinister look, nothing like what I see when I look in the mirror.
“I will, Father,” I reply, smoothing down the cocktail dress that I was given to play the part at yet another function. It’s the only time he wants me around, when he needs to show off his “perfect” family.