I would fail him.

I would lose him, just as I had lost Jayme.

I was a fool to think I could make a difference for anybody.

I looked around the trashed room and sighed. I should leave him to this miserable cycle he lived in. I didn’t need to be mixed up in all of this. Brooks was right. My being here was inappropriate. The boundaries were already blurred.

And what would it matter anyway?

Maxx reached out and took my hand. “Stay,” he whispered. I shook my head. I couldn’t stay. Not after everything I’d seen. There was no place for me in his world.

“Please, Aubrey. Stay with me,” he pleaded. I turned back to him. His pupils were dilated, and I wasn’t sure if it was just the drugs or whether he had a concussion. I should have taken him to the hospital. He may have had broken bones. But I had allowed my good sense to be drowned out by the need to care for him. To do it all myself.

As if I had something to prove by making things right, all on my own.

I was scared to leave him in the state he was in. But I was scared to stay, knowing that if I did, that was it. I had stepped over that invisible line. And once I had done so, there was no turning back. It would be too late.

I stared down at Maxx, and he looked so young and vulnerable, his face devoid of its characteristic calculation and seductive allure. He seemed . . . innocent.

I wouldn’t leave him. I couldn’t walk out his door and pretend that this boy didn’t matter to me.

Already, he had become something important. Something I should never have allowed him to be. But that didn’t change the fact that he was.

I opened my mouth to agree to stay, but Maxx’s eyes were closed and his mouth drooped open. I found a blanket and draped it over him.

Then I lay down on the bed, wrapping my coat around myself, and watched him while he slept, each rise and fall of his chest binding me to him in a way that frightened me with its totality.

There was no leaving him.

I had made my choice.

I just hoped it was the right one.

maxx

my chest felt tight, and my head screamed in agony. Every joint, every limb, ached and burned. It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. I felt sick to my stomach, and bile rose up in the back of my throat.

I was going to puke.

I tried to lift my head, but even that small movement set off a wave of nausea that quickened the vomit rising up my throat.

I rolled onto my side and retched. And then I retched again. And just for good measure I retched some more.

I moaned, rolling onto my side. I had the sense to know I was on my bedroom floor, though how I had gotten here was a good question. Everything after I had arrived at Compulsion last night was a complete blank.

There were flashes here and there of things I think I’d prefer to forget.

I tried to hoist myself up onto the bed, but instead I started to dry heave. My face and the back of my neck were slick with sweat. The acrid smell of my puke filled my nostrils, and I started to shudder with the need to spew again.

“Jeesh,” I heard someone mutter, followed by a pair of cool hands on my upper arms as they pulled me back onto the bed. I recognized the voice, though my fuzzy mind couldn’t connect the dots.

I tried to open my eyes but found only one of them was working. Shit, why couldn’t I get my fucking eye open?

I started panicking. I slowly patted my face and hissed in pain as my fingers made contact with very raw flesh.

Christ, I was going to be sick again.

“Hold on,” the voice urged. There was no holding on to anything. I opened my mouth to throw up, but nothing came up. My stomach was officially empty. But that didn’t stop my body from attempting to bring up my stomach lining.

I was shaking uncontrollably, and those cold, soft hands touched my face. I think I moaned at how good it felt. Don’t stop touching me.

“I’m not going anywhere,” the voice soothed. And for the brief second before I passed out again, I felt comforted. And it made the free fall into blackness that much sweeter.

“Fuck,” I groaned. I tried to sit up, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. My limbs felt weighed down, and the tips of my extremities were on fire. I felt like I was simultaneously boiling alive and freezing to death.

My teeth chattered and my head pounded. My stomach was sore and clenched, ready to expel whatever might be left inside me out onto my bedroom floor.

I thought I was dying.

No, I knew I was dying.

I knew this horrible feeling all too well.

I didn’t want to die.

I wanted to live.

I wanted to feel good again.

“Please,” I begged, not sure anyone was around to hear my pathetic pleas. I vaguely remembered hands and words spoken in my ear before I blacked out. But I didn’t give a fucking shit about any of that.

“Give me my fucking pills,” I growled, trying to sit up again, though more forcefully this time. My fingers curled into claws as I reached for my bedside table and the bottle I knew I kept there.

“Maxx, lie down. You need to rest,” the voice said softly.

The room was dark. I couldn’t see who the voice belonged to. I didn’t care who it belonged to.

“Give me my fucking pills, now!” I screamed. The voice would give me what the fuck I wanted or I would fucking kill it!

I lunged for the drawer, my body not working properly. My arms felt useless, my hands weak and feeble. I slapped at the top of the table, knocking off my lamp, not flinching as glass shattered on the floor.

“Maxx, it’s okay,” the voice soothed. I was going to kill that voice! I hated that voice! It was keeping me from the only thing that could make me feel better!

“I will stab you in the goddamned throat if you don’t give me my fucking pills!” I swore, lunging in the direction of the voice.

“Maxx,” the voice cried out, sounding sad.

My body was on fire. My movements made me sick. I leaned over the side of my bed as more stomach acid surged up my throat and out of my mouth, dribbling down my chin.

“Please,” I sobbed between full heaves.

The voice didn’t say anything. But hands held me as I shook and trembled.

I pushed the hands away. “Please, just give them to me!” I begged, falling onto my side. I tried to bring my knees up to my chest, but I thought I would be snapped in half. I felt as if I were being flayed alive.

“Please!” I screamed. And the voice cooed something in my ear. And the hands rubbed my back. And all I could do was cry and cry and cry. I cried for the thing I needed but the voice wouldn’t give me.

And then everything went mercifully black again.

“You need to drink something.”

I stirred as the soft voice whispered into my ear. A strong hand gripped the back of my neck, pulling me up. My greedy lips touched the edge of a glass, and cool liquid reached my tongue.

At first my throat convulsed, and my stomach threatened to throw the liquid back up. The glass disappeared while I gasped for breath and tried to control my body’s painful revolt.

When I was able to keep from upchucking, the glass was placed at my lips again, and this time I drank more water. My mouth was painfully dry, and my tongue stuck to my lips.

“That’s enough for now,” the voice murmured as the glass was taken away from me. My mouth gaped like a fish’s, desperate for more.

Hands pushed me back down onto the bed, soft fingers caressing my face. I grabbed the hand and held it firmly, the small fingers crushed in my much larger ones.

“Stop it, you’re hurting me,” the voice gasped, and my eye flew open, still only the one, and I stared up in horror at the beautiful face that hovered over me with a pained expression.