Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly 1)

The race to the bridge is our biggest challenge. We leave the sounds of the search behind as we cross the highway. Cars stop in the middle of the street, horns blare. Thirty seconds to go.

I pick up the pace once we’re on the median. Her gasps of pain sting my ears. I feel her pain for her, and I would take it if I could. The destination is in sight. Another five seconds and we’re here. “Stop.”

She doubles over to catch her breath. “We’re in the wide open!”

I look over the side of the bridge. “We’re going down.”

Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head. “No. I’m not dying for you—”

I grab her around the waist and pull her back against me. She kicks and fights as I ease up against the cement railing. “You already made your choice.”

I take her with me over the edge.

The creek water hits us with an icy fist. A rock tears into my shoulder. I aimed for the deepest part of the Brandywine, but it’s still a shallow pool.

“Oh, my god!” She sputters and wipes at her face. “I hate you.”

I circle my arms around her and haul her close. “You act as if you’ve never swam in a creek, country girl.”

Her fists beat at my arms, splashing water. “This is madness—”

I turn her toward me, taking her face into my hands so I can stare into her brown eyes. “This is so much more than madness. This is what obsession does to a person.” I swallow hard. “Believe me, I have tried every way to get you out of my system, out of my head… I can’t. I’m only trying to make sense of the nonsense. We’re connected, and we belong together. I’m already a dead man. So if I die in pursuit to obtain the unattainable…then that’s a death I can honor.”

She blinks through the droplets of water, her gaze flicking over my features. “You’re doing this because you believe you can what…? Feel love?” She shakes her head against my grasp. “Jesus, Grayson. That’s insane. And impossible. You’re confused and sick.”

“Then we’ll be sick together.”

I push off the floor of th

e creek to stand, bringing London with me. “Stay on the bank. Track through the water. Dogs can’t scent us in the water.”

She’s managing, but I can sense her lethargy. She’s fading fast. As soon as her adrenaline wears off, she’ll be in too much agony to continue. I just have to get us outside of downtown. Then I can take over for her.

I smile to myself. Nurture is a strange thing.

My objective over the past year hasn’t always been clear. The more I researched and learned about London, the more my goal has changed. But there has been one remainder that has consistently stayed the same.

Her.

She’s the answer to my purpose.

With death row as my only certainty for the future, a short life sentence of penance isn’t an option any longer. I’ve paid my dues to this world, a world that robbed me early on, that fashioned me into a killer and now wants to punish me for it. I owe it nothing.

But for her…I can be more. I can be whole. The completeness that we mean together is a satisfaction to the compulsions that has consumed me for months. Demanding to be obtained.

She is my salvation. And I am her long-awaited consequence.

20

Chemistry

London

Trekking through a muddy creek with a convicted killer on the run is not how I imagined my life would end. And it will end. Badly. There’s no other logical outcome to this insanity. Detective Foster already has me pinned as Grayson’s accomplice, and when he locates the gun that Grayson discarded, he’ll deduce I helped him escape willingly.

I’ll be prosecuted as aiding and abetting, if I don’t end up dead.

I’m still trying to process what exactly snapped inside me the moment I put my hand in his.