18. Brick

I followed Camille without speaking. She wasn’t saying anything, so I didn’t feel as if I could either, even though that had never stopped me before.

Tonight was different.

Okay, fine. I was worried as fuck about her. Too worried to talk. But she was refusing to get this trauma-inducing shit completely out of her system and just release it already like she needed to. And I couldn’t allow myself to deal with what had just happened until she did.

So basically, I was going stir crazy inside.

“I, uh…” She glanced over her shoulder at me after she unlocked her door and entered her apartment. Her eyes had dried, but they were still red from the mini cry-fest she’d had in the car. “I think I’m going to take a shower real quick. Get all this—you know—all this grime off me.”

As she set her purse and the ax on the counter, I blinked at them—an old, dirt-caked ax with a bit of blood on the blade lying beside a pristine-clean wicker basket. They didn’t look as if they belonged together. And y