The Butterfly and The Moth

49

There are specific times in my life when I get a twisted, warped sense of deja-vu.

The times when I can see exactly which snippets of my life I will see before I die. I don't have very many good snippets. But tonight, I knew I had gained a few more.

Snippets of moments when all was right in the world. Moments where everything goes quiet. Everything bad, everything worrisome, all just melted away because in that single second, there was nothing to worry about.

That's how I had felt with Sterling tonight. It was like he said- he had given me a good memory. One more good memory. In Sterling's arms, everything had melted away.

Until now.

And I knew, in this moment, I was about to gain another bad memory. Another bad snippet.

My insides shook like a frail branch in the wind. The sort of wind that held an autumn chill, whispering dreadful secrets into the ears of dried leaves.

Sterling's body, strong and broad, barred the entryway. His back was a fortified wall between me and Erik.

And, I knew it was Erik.

I didn't need Sterling to tell me. I didn't need to hear his voice. I knew it was him; I didn't need the evidence of my own eyes.

The ice cold dread that I was familiar with was wrapping my heart in iron chains. It turned my lungs into stone. And that's how I knew it was Erik. There was no oxygen left to breathe.

"Sterling," his name slipped out of my mouth. A plea.

Sterling's eyes never left Erik, but the twitch of his jaw told me he had heard me. He looked like a statue, an imposing figure of chiseled marble, yet I could sense the hurricane beneath his cold surface.

"Dahlia," he replied. His voice was smooth like the surface of a lake at dawn, but with an undercurrent of urgency that made my stomach drop. "Call Colt."

A command that ricocheted in the silence. Call Colt.

But my fingers felt numb, my mind dizzied by the sudden acceleration of my pulse. I felt as though I were trapped in a vacuum, a space where oxygen had been siphoned off and replaced by a thick, suffocating dread.

Everywhere Erik went, he sucked the oxygen right out of the room.

Then Erik's voice slithered in. Uninvited and venomous. It sounded like rusty nails on a chalkboard. It was slurred and rushed, yet all too familiar, too raw.

A shiver of terror shot down my spine, bringing back memories of a night that had left my soul scarred. I knew this situation was even worse than I thought, because not only was Erik here. He was here, and high.

"Well, what do we have here?" Erik said. The amusement in his tone concealed a layer of resentment as sharp as a shattered mirror. He had obviously noticed Sterling's suit, and the decorations around us. "You two are on a date, huh?"

His words hung in the air, so venomous they seemed to poison the very atmosphere. His words were a wolf in sheep's clothing, an underlying hint of anger laced with a dangerous, possessive note. A toxic mixture of jealousy and scorn.

I wished I was somewhere else. Anywhere but here, on this catastrophic collision course with a past I'd been running from. But wishing was for dandelion seeds and shooting stars, and reality was as relentless as the ocean tide.

Sterling's figure straightened, the dangerous glint in his eyes a silent threat to Erik.

"Leave," he told Erik, the words holding a deadly promise that sent a shiver crawling up my spine. His voice had an edge to it, sharper than a knife, slicing through the tension-laden room. "You've no right to be here."