I was drowning, the craving for doing something crazy flowing through my veins. I recognized all the symptoms of my breakdown before they happened, but it wasn't like I could stop it now.
It was all coming to a head, and I was in a downward spiral that only my medication and therapy could pull me out of but I didn't want that.
I didn't want help, didn't want to get better. I wanted something reckless and dangerous.
My fingers began texting Rafael before my brain could even acknowledge what on earth I was doing, the chemicals rushing through me of their own accord pushing me to go farther and farther, deeper into the dark place that I went to after the trial.
I hadn't gone there after Nate, mainly because he wasn't worth going there for, but as the memories stacked up on top of each other, the reminders of how toxic he truly was...I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper each night.
I rummaged through my things, picking out my favorite weapons of choice...I hadn't used them since I was seventeen, when a man at a bar got too frisky with a girl who obviously didn't want it.
The taser lit up and buzzed to life, the feeling of power in my hands growing by the second. I imagined the crumpled look of pain on Rafael's face as I used the weapon on his most sensitive part. The dark fantasy brought a malicious smile to my face but a knock on my door had me hiding the taser in my pocket before whoever it was could see.
"Come in," I called, irritated that they had interrupted me while I was concocting my plan.
"Hey, I just wanted to apologize. Of course you don't have to make a statement about anything if you don't want to, that's your life and I never should have sided with your brother or your dad. They both left, by the way. I figured we could chill on the couch again tonight, watch a movie?"
And in that moment, staring into Emmett's deep blue eyes and taking in his heartfelt apology, a clam night at home was exactly what I wanted...but deep down, in that murky place beneath my soul where a monster lied I knew I could never have that.
Calm.
I would always be filled with tumultuous pain and angst that could only be cured by an appetite of vengeance and justice.
"Thanks for saying that...I'm actually going to go hang out with Amalia tonight, though. Rain check?"
His face fell, and I couldn't help but think that I was making a huge mistake, but it was already made for me. I'd chosen the path that was most destructive, the one that suited my dark needs.
My phone beeped and while I was pretending it was Amalia, it was really Rafael, asking me to drive to his house.
He probably thought I was up for a booty call, but that was hardly what I had in store.
"Okay, well I'm gonna head out, I'll see you later?"
"Okay, see you."
He shoved his hands in his pockets as I squeezed by him in the small entryway through my room, the atmosphere between us crackling with electricity.
His arm grabbed mine quickly before I could make it by him, suspicion clouding his eyes.
"Where are you really going?"
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.
"I'm-I'm going to Amalia's like I said."
"Yeah, you're a bad liar. Plus you have a taser in your pocket, which is on by the way."
"How did you-"
"The red blinking light was an indication, plus my mom always used to carry one."
He had never spoken about his family before.
No matter how much I wanted to know more about Emmett and get underneath those layers that were piled on top of him, I had a desperate need to get out of the house and do something dangerous, chaotic. Something to quell the rising terror inside of me telling me that I was nothing if I didn't get justice for the girls who he'd hurt, because Marnie surely wasn't the only one.
"Oh," I said, the word falling out of my mouth of its own accord.
"Yeah. So where are you really going?"
He noticed the hesitation in my eyes, the building fear.
"Are you going to see Rafael? With just a taser are you crazy?"
"Crazy? Yeah maybe I am."
"Lydia..."
We were so close, our bodies only separated by a thin layer of air. I wanted to badly to reach out and tangle my arms around his shoulders and place my lips against his, but I restrained. It would only complicate everything more than it already was, and that was something we didn't need, no matter how much I wanted it.
A little voice in the back of my head told me that the same was true for the Rafael situation, that I couldn't just do something because I wanted it.
I didn't just want it, though. I needed it with a desperate burning passion that threatened to burn me from the inside out if I didn't do something that second.
"Emmett, please just let me go."
"I can't just let you go and let yourself be bait for a sexual predator with a weapon clearly on you. He could easily find that and disarm you, and then you'd be at his mercy. I'm not going to let you walk into harm's way."
"I could just tase you, then you'd have no choice but to let me go."
"Seriously? You'd tase your only real ally in taking down Rafael? Come on, we had a plan. He goes to the bathroom, I follow him and antagonize him into telling the truth about what happened that night with Marnie and I catch it all on my recorder on my phone. This is so not the plan. What were you planning? Wait until he made a move then tase him?"
"Not exactly..."
He didn't know my past, that I'd done this before.
I wasn't proud of my vigilante status, but it made me feel better when I did it. It made me feel powerful, in control.
I obviously hadn't told anyone, not even my therapist. I was worried she could tell the cops because I could be a danger 'to myself or others' like she'd talked about before.
"So what was your plan?"
I sighed, head in my hands. He clearly wasn't going to believe that I could do this.
"Go to his house, tell him I'm just looking to talk, wait until he serves me a drink and I'll pretend to drink it. I say I'm not feeling good and act drugged, then when he starts getting physical I'll say no, all of this will be recorded in my pocket by the way. Then when he starts getting to be too much I'll tase him and then call the cops."
He stood there in thought for what felt like years.
"Lydia, have you done this before?"
My eyes grew wide with worry that he'd found out yet another secret that I'd tried to keep hidden.
"Just once, in a bar that I wasn't even supposed to be in. I was seventeen, and this man was getting too handsy with a girl. I pretended that I wanted to go home with him, but when we got outside he groped me and I tased him. It was amazing. He went down to the ground and was crying basically. I told him if he even looked at another woman the wrong way again that I'd send the cops to his house, which I should have done anyway but the physical justice was enough for me in that moment."
Emmett stared at something just beyond my head, like he couldn't look me in the eyes.
His hand went up to the door jamb above my head, blocking me in the space between us so I couldn't go anywhere. His head hung low, an internal battle being fought within himself.
"What if I make you a deal? If my plan this weekend doesn't work at the club then we can try it your way. But I'm coming with you."
It didn't satiate my desire for danger, but it was a stalemate, after all.
"Fine."
"Good."
The lasting silence stretched out beyond us, heat permeating the layers of unspoken words between the two of us. His hand reached out and brushed a hair off of my cheek, something so delicate yet intoxicating at the same time.
I wondered what he was thinking about me in that moment. 'Damn, she is one crazy bitch. I should stay away from her. What did I get myself into, moving in here?'
Apparently, his thoughts were completely opposite of what I was imagining because all of a sudden his lips descended upon mine and I was lost to a tidal wave of new sensations and a lust so built up that we almost devoured each other right then and there in the hallway.
I pulled myself out of it long enough to recognize the need reflected back at me through his eyes. He wanted me just as much as I wanted him...complications be damned.
I threw caution to the wind and flung open door, neither of us parting so we could make it into the privacy of my bedroom.
His lips were soft as velvet and erupted tingles everywhere they touched.
At some point I had pulled his shirt off from the bottom hem and traced my fingers along his gloriously defined abs. I wanted to continue but a nagging voice in the back of my head told me that we should slow down.
I didn't want to. I wanted to be dangerous, and chaotic and lose myself...
No, not with Emmett. Emmett wasn't someone who deserved to be used in a way to satiate my dark desires.
"Wait, stop."
We were both breathless and panting as we pulled apart, my cheeks becoming inflamed at what had just transpired between us.
Although it was the most erotic make out session I'd had in my entire life, I had to stop. I was experiencing things for Emmett that I'd never felt before with anyone, and I owed it to the both of us to take it slow, which is exactly what I told Emmett...more or less.
"I don't want this to complicate things. Can we just...take it slow? Movie night on the couch, getting to actually know each other before jumping into bed together?"
A wolfish grin stretched out across his face.
"Wow, so that was all it took to get you to agree to a movie night? Noted."
He threw his shirt back on, his back muscles rippling as he did so which made me reconsider my decision about a million different times but then he was reaching his hand out to me, the television set awaiting us.
I smiled brightly at him as I placed my hand in his, the darkness quelled and at bay...for the time being.