Ride Or Remember

CHAPTER 14

LIORA

“Ms. Liora!”

A sharp slap landed on my shoulder, jolting me back to reality so suddenly that I nearly jumped out of my chair.

Slowly, I turned my head toward the source of the voice.

Ms. Chloe stood beside my desk, her expression tight with frustration. Judging by the way her lips were moving, she had probably been calling my name for a while.

I watched her mouth move, but I couldn't hear a single word she was saying, the ringing in my ears drowning everything out.

Her lips continued moving as she spoke, her brows furrowing deeper with every passing second. Then, after what felt like forever, she finally stopped talking.

The anger on her face softened into concern.

Leaning forward, she placed a hand on my shoulder.

I felt her shake me gently.

Still, whatever she said next never reached me, her words completely lost in the deafening noise in my ears.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Maybe this was what happened when someone survived on coffee alone.

For the past week, sleep had become my enemy.

Every time I closed my eyes, the nightmares returned.

Nightmares I thought I had finally escaped.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Pushing my chair back, I rose unsteadily to my feet. "I need some fresh air."

The sound of my own voice startled me. It barely sounded like me, rough, dry, broken.

The entire office fell silent. I could feel dozens of eyes following me.

Some looked worried, some uncomfortable, while some looked sorry for me, like I was some tragic spectacle they couldn't stop staring at.

Maybe they weren't wrong.

Maybe I was something to pity.

Without waiting for anyone to stop me, I walked away.

When I reached the elevator, I stepped inside and pressed the button for the rooftop, my mind blank and absent as I rode up there.

Finally, the elevator gave a soft ping and the doors opened. However, just a few step forward, I halted at the sight before me.

Standing near the edge of the rooftop was Evan.

No.

Ryder.

God.

I didn't even know what to call him anymore.

He stood dangerously close to the edge, his back facing me.

One wrong step and he would fall to his death.

"Eva_” I swallowed hard. "Ryder?"

For several long seconds, he didn't move, then slowly, he turned around and that was when I noticed something different.

The tattoos that usually covered his skin were gone, the silver rings he always wore were missing, and no leather vest.

Even his hair looked different.

It wasn't messy like he had spent the entire day running frustrated fingers through it.

My heart slammed violently against my ribs, because the man standing in front of me didn't look like Ryder.

He looked like… "Evans?"

"Why?" He whispered.

My legs barely held me as I moved toward him, my heartbeat so loud I could hear it in my own ears.

“Why what?”

“Why did you have to send me to my death?”

I stopped breathing.

Every part of me went cold, the kind of cold that starts in your bones and works outward until even your fingertips feel hollow.

Tears came without warning, spilling before I could blink them back.

“I had no idea,” I whispered, the words cracking. “Evans, I swear to you, I had no idea there was going to be a shooting that day. I didn’t know. I couldn’t have known.”

More tears tracked hot lines down my cheeks, and I let them fall.

“If I could turn back time_” my voice broke, but I pushed through_ “if I could reach into the past with my bare hands and drag the clock backwards, Evans, I would. I would sell my soul without blinking. I’d go back to that morning, to that stupid conversation, and I’d swallow every word before it ever left my mouth.” I pressed a fist to my chest. “I’d go back even further. Back to the very first day I ever looked at you. And I’d make sure none of this ever happened.”

“All I did was love you.” He whispered. “So why did you kill me, Liora?”

“I’m sorry!” I took another shaky step toward him, my whole body trembling. “I am so, so_”

“I hope you never forgive yourself.” He spat. “I hope that guilt follows you into every room you walk into for the rest of your life.” He took one step back, and then another. “I hope you die too, Liora. That is the only way I will ever forgive you.”

“Evans! wait!”

But he was already moving. His body jerked backward, tipping over the ledge of the rooftop like he had made peace with it long before tonight.

I ran.

I ran with everything my body had, every last desperate, frantic piece of me, screaming his name, reaching for him, my fingers grasping nothing but air.

Too late.

Always too late.

I crashed into the railing, both hands gripping the cold metal as I forced myself to look down, bracing for the unbearable sight of his broken body on the pavement below.

But there was nothing.

Just the ordinary world of people walking, talking, laughing softly under the streetlights.

I stood there gasping, my chest heaving, tears and confusion blurring my vision.

“Liora…” He whispered in my ear behind me and

I spun around so fast I nearly lost my footing.

No one was there.

“Liora…”

It came again, closer this time. I turned in a full circle, my breathing ragged, my eyes searching for him.

“You killed me.” he whispered, followed by an echoing laughter that gritted in my ears like fingernails on the board.

I covered my ears.

It didn’t help.

I slammed both hands over my ears and crouched down until my knees nearly touched the ground, squeezing my eyes shut. A scream tore out of me, loud and desperate. I screamed until my throat burned, hoping..praying…that the sound of my own voice would be enough to drown him out.

It wasn’t.

“Liora?!”

I lifted my face, tear-soaked, swollen, probably frightening and blinked hard until the figure in front of me came into focus.

Marcus.

My co-worker. My desk neighbor. The person who sat close enough to me every single day that I knew exactly how he took his coffee.

“Marcus…” I whispered, my fingers reaching for him on instinct, trembling so badly I could feel the shake moving all the way up my arm. “Make it stop.”

He looked around, a quick, sweeping glance at the empty rooftop then back at me.

“Make what stop, Liora?”

“The laughter.” I could still hear it, even now. “Please, Marcus. Just make it stop.”

He exhaled slowly, then reached down and gently pulled me upright, his large hand moving carefully to my shoulder where he placed my shoulderbag

“Ms. Chloe said you can go home for the day,” he said quietly. “Let me grab my car keys. I’ll drive you.”

But it was the look in his eyes that stopped me cold.

I knew that look.

I had seen it a hundred times before, on neighbors, on relatives, on strangers who had heard what happened and didn’t know what to say so they just stared.

Pity.

The same pity they had given me back home, after Evans died.

I took a step back.

“I’m fine.” The lie came out clean and flat.

Marcus reached for me anyway, unconvinced and I stepped back again, putting more distance between us.

He pressed his lips together, pinched his brows, then straightened his back.

“Call me when you get home, Liora.”

“I don’t owe you that, Marcus.”

I turned before he could respond, dragging my feet toward the elevator. The doors slid shut, and I let out a long, shaking breath.

Ignoring my car, I hauled a taxi and gave him my address, then closed my eyes, and tried to ignore the laughter that keeps ringing in my head.

Then I closed my eyes.

The taxi rolled to a stop outside my building, and I dug into my purse without really looking, pulling out a fistful of notes and pressing them into the driver’s hand without counting. I didn’t wait for change, just got out and walked away.

The laughter followed me inside.

I moved through the familiar dark of my own home, muscle memory carrying me to my bedroom when my mind had long since stopped cooperating.

I opened the bedside drawer.

The pill bottle sat exactly where I had left it, untouched for longer than I wanted to admit. I stared at it for a moment, then picked it up, shook two out into my palm and swallowed them with a gulp from the water bottle on the nightstand.

Then I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, both hands pressed over my ears, eyes squeezed shut, waiting.

The laughter didn’t stop.

If anything, it grew louder, , speaking directly into the side of my head. I pressed my palms harder against my ears until they ached.

I reached for the pill bottle again.

Two more. I held them in my palm and stared at them for a long moment. Then, almost without deciding to, I added two more to the small pile sitting in my hand, reasoning somewhere in the fog of my mind that maybe this time it would be enough. Maybe this time the noise would finally, finally go quiet.

I washed them down and sat very still, waiting for something to change.

It didn’t.

Moving mechanically, I peeled off my clothes and drifted into the bathroom, stepping into the bathtub before turning on the tap.

Maybe the coldness of this water will help me sleep… because sleep is the only way I can escape the sound in my head.