“Don’t think about Maxx and what he’s doing. You can’t. You have to think only about you,” Renee said firmly.

I knew she was right. Of course she was. But I had to admit that it still hurt to hear. And it didn’t dissolve the shame I felt for allowing myself, for one brief, insane moment, to fall back into the chaos only Maxx could create.

I thought about how out of control I had felt as I watched Maxx lose himself to the drugs. I had isolated myself by being so wrapped up in his dysfunction. But I had been happy to drown in him, because he was all that I wanted.

And look where it got me. I wouldn’t be that girl again. I needed a decisive break. I knew, deep down, that I had been holding on to the painful hope that Maxx would come back a changed man and sweep me off my feet.

It suddenly hit me that I had been waiting for the crumbs of confirmation that Maxx was getting help. I had been inadvertently living in a delusional fairy tale with a warped happily-ever-after. But what I really needed was to let him go before I lost myself all over again. I grabbed my keys and rattled them in my hand, feeling agitated.

“I need to get out of here for a bit. Clear my head. I’ll be back later,” I explained, not making eye contact.

I needed to get my head together. To cleanse Maxx from my system before I suffocated.

“Do you want some company?” she asked, getting to her feet.

I shook my head.

“I’ll be fine. I just have some processing to do,” I told her.

Renee’s lips twitched into a shadow of a smile. She was upset for me, and I wished I could tell her she needn’t be. That I would be all right.

“Is that your clinical opinion?” she joked.

“Absolutely,” I said softly.

I couldn’t tell her I was all right. But I would be able to soon.

I would make sure of it.

chapter

five

aubrey

ever since I had gotten my driver’s license, taking to the open road had been my surefire way of getting myself together. Whether it was a bad grade, a fight with a friend, or dealing with the death of my much-loved younger sister, I would get behind the wheel of my car and drive for hours. Often with no particular destination in mind.

I took the unfamiliar curves of the backcountry road with ease. I loved the feel of the cold wind whipping through my hair, my music blasting through the speakers. My mind wandering to the topics that were at any other time off-limits. My parents. Jayme.

“Come on, Aubrey! Let me come with you!” Jayme wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me, a clear attempt at manipulation that she knew I could never refuse.

I had just gotten my license earlier in the day, and as a reward Dad had given me the keys to his car, saying that I could go take a ride around town. I was excited. This would be my first time in the car without one of my parents. I felt like such a grown-up. I was taking that first, decisive step toward adulthood. I was buzzing on it. And Jayme was just as excited about my new license as I was. We had always celebrated in each other’s successes, and this was no different. Though I knew it had just as much to do with the fact that her days of riding the bus to school were now over.

I grinned at my baby sister, never able to deny her anything. I wagged my finger in her face. “If you want to ride in the car with me, there will be rules, Jay,” I warned teasingly.

Jayme rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, no R and B or rap, I got it,” she said, beating me to the punch. Our differing music tastes was one of the few points of contention between us.

I chuckled. “Okay, well, as long as we’re clear about that.”

“Woo-hoo! Let’s go! Maybe we can stop for ice cream!” Jayme squealed, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me out the door.

I found myself smiling at the memory. The awaiting ache of grief was ever present, but it couldn’t erase the joy that I felt at remembering my sister. It felt amazing. I found that I didn’t want to force myself to forget about Jayme. I wanted to remember her. And the hole in my heart began to mend . . . just a little bit.

Then I thought of Maxx. The joy disappeared, and the hole in my chest ripped open all over again. I tried to shift my thoughts to the dark side of Maxx, to the club. To the addiction that owned him. It was important to remind myself that letting him back in was dangerous.

Compulsion had been a fixture in the underground club scene since the midnineties. The stories and rumors about it had become the stuff of urban legend. The main allure was the sense of mystery—it was never in the same location twice.

And that is where Maxx had come in. When I was first introduced to the club scene months before, I hadn’t realized that Maxx was the mysterious “X,” whose intricate street art left randomly all over the city provided the clues to the club’s location each weekend.

Find the art, and you find Compulsion. The details were wrapped within the painting that was unlike anything I had ever seen. Maxx’s alter ego had created a reputation for himself, not only with his intense artwork but as the man to see if you were looking for a particular type of diversion.

And while he was slinging drugs and defacing buildings, I had been completely oblivious that my Maxx was actually the dangerous and volatile X.

Until it was too late and my heart was so ensnared there was no turning back. But Compulsion had given me something I hadn’t known I had been looking for . . . an escape.

And suddenly, I knew that’s where I needed to go.

I just had to find out where the infamous club was located tonight. And it hit me that finding the picture would not only lead me to Compulsion, it could quite possibly answer the question that was eating away at my insides.

I needed to know if Maxx was still around, doing the same things I had left him for.

I needed closure, and hoped that the answers would finally allow me to move on once and for all, whatever those answers were.

I started driving around aimlessly, looking into the darkened alleyways and on the sides of buildings, trying to find the elusive X’s handiwork.

After almost an hour I was close to giving up. The knot in my stomach hadn’t eased, but I was forced to admit that it looked as though I wasn’t going to find what I sought.

I pulled into a gas station to fill up my car. I had been driving long enough that I was dangerously low on fuel. I twisted the gas cap and lifted the nozzle off the lever.

“Here,” a guy said, shoving a flyer into my hands before walking away to stick the papers in his hand under windshields.

“Uh, thanks,” I said, crumpling the waste of trees in my hand. The bright colors and manic writing caught my attention before I could throw it away. I smoothed out the flyer on the hood of my car and could have laughed at the irony of this moment.

The word Compulsion arched over the top of a reproduction of one of Maxx’s more elaborate paintings. At the bottom was an address that wasn’t too far from where I was.

I had never seen the club distribute flyers before. That meant Maxx wasn’t painting his pictures.

I thought about calling Renee, just to tell her what I planned on doing. I almost wanted someone to talk me off the ledge. To tell me that going to the club, the place where Maxx has indulged in the darkest parts of himself, was the dumbest thing I could do.

But instead I stuck the flyer on my dashboard and headed toward an unknowable future.

I ended up at the old Longwood Residential Center, which used to be a nursing home almost thirty years ago. The sprawling, rambling buildings were derelict and falling down in places. It looked condemned, which is why this location was perfect for the club.