Dirty Princes (Hot Candy 3)

My vision blurs as I storm out of the office, out of the building, going faster and faster, as if running for my life. It feels like that’s what I’m doing. Running for my sanity, perhaps.

Nobody before had both the power and the opportunity to shatter me like Ryan does. Reeling me in just enough to make me open up and then slapping me away until I’m doubting myself, only to hook me and drag me back in. A vicious cycle.

I’d better break it before it breaks me.

Chapter Twenty

Candy Dicks

Riddick

As the days pass, I start to get used to the quiet of my apartment and the vise of worry around my heart. The vise of fear.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

Get used to it, Rid. Accept it. It’s the only way to keep alive.

My mom got discharged from the hospital—free to go back home to her stash of pills and bottles of booze, the fights with my dad and the next overdose.

Meanwhile, Xavier has shown no sign of life—or death. Or anything, really. He’s vanished from the map of my life, and I’ve closed his bedroom door, not to see its emptiness every day.

Should I go to the police? Can you go to the police if a person doesn’t want to be found?

What the hell am I supposed to do? Wait until he turns up in the ER, like Mom? Or in the morgue?

So much for accepting this shit and getting on with life, huh, Rid? Jesus Christ. Breathe. Nobody’s dead. They’re adults.

r /> They’re not your responsibility.

Then why do I feel like bashing my head against the wall or drowning in a bottle tonight? Or any night, lately. Dragging myself to work, then to my second job, and then back home is a torture. All I wanna do is sprawl on my sofa and drink until I don’t care anymore.

Dangerous.

Too easy.

I could slide down the hill like Xavier, like Mom. It’s in my blood. It’s a family tradition. Letting go of the rope and dropping into oblivion.

I’ve fought the pull so far. And I fight it again tonight as I look at the bottle of Scotch, forcing myself to put it away. My back is bothering me again, and I pop two painkillers, over-the-counter medication that probably won’t do me any good, but I’ll be damned if I pop anything stronger, anything addictive.

But it hurts, and I don’t mean just my back. It hurts in my soul, like an old scar in the cold damp. It’s a pain that’s ripping me apart slowly, and I don’t know how much fucking longer I can bear it.

So when the doorbell rings at some point in the night, rousing me from my sprawl on the sofa and from dark dreams, I’m not in the best of moods.

At first, when I open the door and find a scowling Ryan standing outside, one side of his face bruised, one eye ringed with black, I’m concerned.

“What happened to you?” I ask, and am rewarded with a growl of rage.

“You bastard.” He charges on me, shoving me back a step before my brain engages. “You goddamn bastard.”

Whoa.

And my mood just got worse. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” He grabs the doorframe as if otherwise he’ll topple over, and a cloud of alcohol hits my face.

Jeez. I may have avoided the booze, but Ryan didn’t.

He puts his hand on me, shoving me again, but this time I’m ready for it and shove him right back, a hand on his firm pecs.