1 ⁕ Julia
I need answers.
Cas has consistently avoided me since we met again, but today I'm joining his team and heading out on patrol. We're going to spend the whole night together. This time he doesn't get away from me.
Wearing black cargo pants and a black T-shirt, both secretly procured from the equipment room, I sneak along the corridor. My fingers clutch my face mask.
This old factory building is the headquarters of his gang, where Cas and a few others even live, but I don't know what's going on here. It's certainly not legal, even if his people provide security every night in this run-down neighborhood where the police no longer dare to go.
Suddenly something pierces my back, burning my skin like a hot laser beam. I freeze. I feel his presence with every fiber of my being.
“What are you doing, Julia?”
I turn around in slow motion. For the first time in five years, I'm alone with him, and as I realize this, long-suppressed pain and anger boil up inside me, quickening my breath and making my heart hammer against my chest.
You could light up the whole city with the energy of the rage that flares up inside me. It burns through my veins, but before it can explode, a touch of fear cools it down again. Part of me is now afraid of the love of my youth. Cas is no longer the same.
He stands in the middle of the sparsely lit hallway, his muscular, tattooed arms crossed in front of his broad chest. With his stern, angular features, all those evil tattoos and the same black outfit I'm wearing, he looks like a dark warrior. Like the personification of the dangerous.
I clear my throat and raise my chin defiantly. “I'm coming with you today.”
The corners of his mouth twitch briefly, then he raises an eyebrow. “ You can't come along, Julia.”
The anger in me flares up again, but at the same time I'm flooded with an exhilarating high. Having his attention and being alone with him is everything I wanted to achieve. I'm going to make the most of this opportunity.
“Why did you suddenly disappear from my life, Cas? Why have you ghosted me all of a sudden? It's like you never cared about me!”
After a life-changing kiss and after touches that ruined me for all the men who came after him. Never again have I felt anything like that.
The impassive mask on his face doesn't slip for a second, but I can't help noticing that his chest is now rising and falling faster under his tight T-shirt.
“Why the hell are you here after I did something like that? Why do you have an apartment in a neighborhood where you don't belong and don't even begin to fit in, Julia?” As hard as he tries, he can't suppress the hidden anger in his words.
“Do you think I'm here because of you? You overestimate yourself. My father speculated, we're no longer rich. I'm a poor student now,” I reply snappishly.
But I swallow hard as a frightening thought suddenly flashes through my mind. What if that really was the reason? What if my subconscious has lured me here just to be near him? I had no way of knowing that he still lived here. But I could suspect it.
I can't give that thought any space.
“Why can't I come with you?”
He straightens up and comes towards me. Slowly. Like a hunter on his prey. Unsure, I take a step back. Then another. His physical presence alone pushes me further and further back. Step by step.
“Too dangerous.”
He forces me through a room door without touching me.
“But you also have women with you.”
“Who have been training for this for years. Not ballet dancers with piano-playing hands.”
“I took a self-defense course.”
He just raises an eyebrow smugly. “Need I remind you that we saved you on Friday? And that this thing could have ended really badly? You didn't stand a chance against that guy.”
I sigh softly. We both know that I have nothing to counter his argument. “And now what? Where are you taking me?”
“I'm tying you to my bed until we get back.”
