Escaped Artist (Untamed #3) (8 page)

Which would be fine…if the treatment worked. But if it didn’t—
if I failed
—then I’d be out of money…and out of Dare. I knew there was no way he would stick around if I kept using. He’d made himself clear. No matter how much he cared for me, our love wouldn’t be enough to withstand the devastation my addiction would leave in its wake.

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the couch, feeling the room swim. I couldn’t lose him. Not again.

The name of the rehab had to be a sign. That was something I could cling to, even if I didn’t have my drawing. Dare wouldn’t have suggested this place if it didn’t have a good success rate.

I opened my eyes to find Sia studying me.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to him after everything he’s had to endure with his mother.”

“What?”

She shrugged her slight shoulders. “I mean, the guy just can’t catch a break. First his whole childhood is spent dealing with a druggie mom and now his girlfriend is one. He must have a lot of bad karma he’s working off.” She tilted her head to one side as her dark eyes dimmed. “He deserves better than this. Better than
you
. I guess I had you pegged all wrong when we met yesterday.”

“You know what? Fuck you.” Goddamn it. I wasn’t his mom. I would prove it to Dare, prove it to everyone. “You don’t even know me, Sia. You have no right
pegging
me.”

“You’re right, I don’t. But I do know Dare. VERY well. And I know that you’re a selfish bitch to be putting him through this again.”

“And you’re a—”

“You ready to go, Ree?” Dare called as he came out of the back. Sia beamed up at him, stood, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and then shot me a nasty look. “Thanks for loaning me your car,” he said to her as he held out his hand to me. “Ready?”

I watched Sia walk away, not even deigning to look over her shoulder at me, and then I stood up.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, but inside I was quaking.

Sia wanted Dare. That was clear as day. I’d gotten the feeling they had some sort of history when he’d first mentioned her three years ago, but it was obvious that for Sia it wasn’t totally
history
.

And I was about to go away, while he’d be working with her. Side by side. Every day.

Fuck. Me.

What if he decided he wanted her instead? What if she convinced him that I’d never completely let go of the pills? What if she—

“Here.” Dare held out a very familiar folded-up piece of paper, and I gasped at the sight of it in his hand. My phoenix. “Carry this with you—a piece of me that you can always have whenever you need it—and when the twenty-eight days are up, I’ll start on the tattoo.”

“Really?” My vision became blurry and my eyes stung as my fingers closed around it. “I won’t be able to pay for—”

“Ree,” he said, and I looked up into his fathomless dark eyes. “I’m doing it. You’re not paying me for anything.
I’m
doing it. For
you
.”

When Dare left me at the rehab center, I felt pure panic. I had my phoenix in one hand, my suitcase in another, but I had no idea what my life would be like twenty-eight days from now.

I had to finally face my past.

That, more than anything, scared the shit out of me.

ten

“B
loody hell. What did the poor toast do to you?” Synner hovered above me, watching me butter the bread. Or what was left of it.

Thirteen days without Ree. If I was a chick, I’d probably know the exact tally of hours, minutes, and seconds. That would definitely push me over the brink of insanity, especially considering I was already teetering on its edge.

He leaned down to take a closer look at my plate, then turned to me and said, “Did it fuck your girl, too?”

“Fuck. Off.” I pointed the knife at his face. “I’m not above committing murder today. I’ll happily live out my twenty to life here if it means shutting you up.”

“You’re not living here happily
now
,” Synner said. “And I sincerely doubt that’s going to change, if the last two weeks are any indication.”

“I’d be a lot happier if you’d go away,” I said, still holding the knife out at him.

Indie walked into the kitchen and pushed the blade down toward the table. “Don’t stab him Dare,” she said, beelining for the coffeepot. “The guy is so perverted he might actually like it. Then you’ll never get rid of him.”

“You wish YOU’D never gotten rid of me,” Synner said with a smirk. “Admit it. You miss the kink.” He spanked her ass and reached into the back pocket of his jeans for his cigarettes.

Before he could pull one out, Indie had already smacked the pack out of his hand, sending it flying to the floor. “Not in the house,” she said.

Synner groaned. “Why do you always insist on being such a bloody ice queen, Blue?”

Her lips parted and her expression softened the way it always did whenever he called her that. Then, just as quickly, it grew hard again. Synner grabbed for his smokes, and Indie rolled her eyes, though she didn’t protest this time.

“Someone has to keep this band from sinking.” She glanced over at the pink panty-clad ass peeking out from behind the open fridge door. “We’re not running a bed and breakfast here, Synner,” she said loudly enough for his groupie-du-jour to hear. “And even if we were—it’s five o’clock in the afternoon.”

Synner just calmly lit up, leaned back against the counter, and smiled at Indie. Then he raked his eyes over the girl’s curves.

“She can’t understand you. She doesn’t speak English.” He took a drag of his cigarette and licked his bottom lip. “But she screams just fine in Dutch.”

Indie glowered. “All entertainment should’ve been long gone. We have a recording session in an hour.”

“As if you didn’t have some bloke in your room last night.” Synner tucked the pack back into his jeans.

“Yeah,” she said. “And he left.
Last night
.”

I tuned out their bickering, focusing on the piece of toast in front of me. It tasted like cardboard. Everything I’d eaten in the past two weeks had tasted like fucking cardboard. It didn’t help that my stomach was knotted up to hell.

I was waiting for the call—the one that my mother had made so many times.
I can’t do this, Daren. I’m not strong enough.

I shook my head.

Ree wasn’t my mom.

She was strong. She could do this. I just wished I could be by her side every step of the way. She felt too far away, too inaccessible.

A high-pitched giggle drew my attention toward Dash and the dark-haired girl he was kissing goodbye at the front door.

Once she’d cleared out, my brother pulled up a stool at the breakfast bar. “That was Anouk,” he said with a wicked grin. “Or maybe Aya?”

“Trying to fuck someone out of your head, too?” I threw the remainder of my toast down on the plate and wiped my hands on my jeans. “You know that doesn’t work, right?”

He shrugged one shoulder and scratched at his chest—right at the spot of his newly inked wren tattoo. “Sure. But at least it’s hell of a lot of fun to try.”

But when he said it, he looked like he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else.

It had to be a girl. For the four years I’d known him, I’d never seen him like this.

“What did she do to you, anyway? The wren, I mean.”

His jaw tightened as he broke eye contact. “Nothing,” he said. “She’s off limits.”

Christ. We shared DNA, but sometimes it seemed like not much else.

“How’s Ree?” Dash said, changing the subject.

I shrugged. “I have no fucking clue.” I ran a hand over my face and sighed. “They insisted on no contact and no visitors for the first two weeks.” Detox from everything, they’d said.

Detox
. I knew all too well the havoc that could wreak. The girl I loved was going through hell right now. And there was nothing I could do to help.

“I get to visit tomorrow,” I said. Finally.

The problem was, a single day felt like an eternity right now. Twenty-four of the longest fucking hours of my life. Every second was dragging so slowly I was pretty damn sure I was never going to make it through this day.

“Fuck it.” I pushed away from the table with a growl. “I’m going to work.”

Dash cocked his head to the side and arched a dark eyebrow at me. “Aren’t you off tonight?”

“Not anymore,” I said. “I need the distraction.”

“Just like Vogel.” Jasmine shook her bright red dreads when I showed up at the shop unannounced. “Living life one heartbeat at a time.” For a lady in her sixties, she could still rock the hippie look.

“I need to work tonight,” I said. “Give me whoever you’ve got.” I didn’t care how many girly butterflies she threw my way. I just needed something to do.

If I’d had a place to paint, I would have gone there instead. For the past two weeks, my hands had itched for a brush, my senses had craved the feel and smell of paint and turpentine.

If I could paint, I could lose track of time. I wouldn’t spend every minute wondering whether the phone was going to ring for me. And the remaining two weeks of rehab could fly the fuck by. But I’d left all my stuff at my apartment in Paris. I’d been so intent on being a total jackass and getting away from the woman I loved, that I hadn’t brought any of it with me.

Served me right.

Tattooing was as close to my art as I could get right now. I didn’t have a brush, but a gun. And human bodies were my canvases. Paint and ink became one and the same.

Somewhat.

“I’m on my way out, darling,” Jasmine said, coming around her table and blowing me a kiss as she walked by. “It’s been slow for a Friday and Sia is the only one left at the show. Maybe she needs a hand with something.”

Ever since I’d been here, Sia had needed a hand with something. As long as I was at work, I had a shadow. I’d kept my distance as best I could—I didn’t want her getting the wrong idea just because we had a history.

Now, as I wandered back to her station, I saw her bending over some guy, adding color to the sleeve covering the upper half of his arm.

When she glanced up and saw me, her entire face lit up.

Once that would have meant something to me. When we’d first met at Rex’s studio in Brooklyn, she’d been this tough chick from the Bronx who’d grown up in foster care and didn’t take shit from anyone. Especially not the screw-up fresh out of juvie.

Older and more experienced, she’d wanted nothing to do with me, had done her best to convince me that I’d never amount to anything.
Once a convict, always a convict
, she’d said to me. And I’d listened. My life had been one failure after another, and I knew she was right. What was the point of trying if I was just going to keep failing?

But then Rex had put a brush in my hand and told her to sit for me.

She’d done it because she worshipped Rex.

He and I had painted her, side by side, day after day. Once in a while he’d look at my canvas and point out where the shadows were off or the shape was wrong, but for the most part he’d left me to do my own thing.

Sia had changed when she’d seen my painting. It wasn’t finished yet when I found her looking at my canvas, the cloth flipped up so she could see the whole thing. She’d stared at me wide-eyed for a moment, her mouth agape.

All I could think at the time had been,
Was it really that bad?

Then she dropped her robe, wrapped her exotic, naked body around me, and latched on. She didn’t let go until she left for Amsterdam six months later.

That had been years ago and, in that time, everything had changed. Including me.

“I’m here,” I said to Sia now as she hunched back over the guy’s beefy arm. “If anyone else comes in, I’ll take them.” She nodded, and I went to my workspace to prepare it just in case.

Because,
goddammit
, someone needed to come in and get a tattoo soon. Hell, I was going to go out on the street and drag them in here kicking and screaming if I needed to.

Twenty minutes later as I was wiping down my chair, I felt Sia’s arms wrap around my waist and her hips slide up against my ass.

My head whipped up, and I flinched away. “What the hell are you doing?”