Darkest Misery Read Free

strength of Johnson’s panic almost knocked me over. The emotional rush left my head spinning.
    Then the door slammed in our faces.

Chapter Two
    I pressed my fingers to my temples. Behind the door, I could sense Johnson’s racing emotions. He was a jittery mess, but fear was a pure emotional response as far as I was concerned. The most potent sort of hit, aside from lust.
    It enabled me to get a good read on his intentions. “He’s going to run.”
    Tom yanked open the screen door and knocked again. “You can’t possibly know that.”
    â€œI know what he’s feeling.”
    â€œWe startled him.”
    â€œYeah, that’s part of it.” I bounded off the front step while Tom called Johnson’s name.
    He turned sharply to me. “Where are you going?”
    Good question. The tiny backyard was fenced off, but I found a gate to the left. “There.”
    Without a glance back at Tom, I ran toward it. He wanted to bring me here? He could let me be useful.
    Johnson was on the move. His panic was ebbing, though a heavy current of key-lime fear ran though him. His confusion was lifting too. I couldn’t tell for sure what this meant, but I could make guesses, and one of those guesses was exactly what I’d told Tom. Johnson was preparing to run, and I suspected I knew why.
    Maybe Tom had been right to bring me here. Wasn’t that a depressing thought?
    I darted through the gate. Keeping low, I crept into the backyard, which was barely big enough to hold a gas grill and a cheap plastic patio table.
    Keep positive, I told myself. Believe helpful things.
    Not being a ray of sunshine under the best of circumstances, I cringed at my own pep talk. But if Johnson was like me, and he probably was, then he could sense any negativity in me as well as I could sense it in him, and I didn’t want him to figure out I was lying in ambush.
    Whether my attempt at forced positivity helped, I’d never know. The back door crashed open, and Johnson came flying out before I was ready for him. He wore a backpack and an expression like that of a cat trapped in a corner. Yet there was nowhere to go except through me if he meant to get to the gate.
    â€œWait!” I reached out for him, moving slowly, doing my damnedest to project a calm I wasn’t sure I felt. “You’re not in any trouble. This isn’t what you think it is.”
    He should have been able to sense I wasn’t lying, but maybe he was too far lost in his distress to notice. Judging by his eyes, I wasn’t even certain he’d heard me.
    I took another tentative step forward, thinking I could subdue him if necessary. I had the training. Alas, Johnson apparently had training too. I held out my hand, and unprepared for his response, I screamed as my feet flew out from under me. My backside smacked the stone patio.
    Luckily, I managed to keep my head from colliding with the ground, but dragon shit on toast. Throbbing pain shot up along my spine from my tailbone all the way to my shoulders. Stunned motionless for a moment, I thought I heard Johnson mutter “Sorry” before his long legs disappeared from my peripheral vision.
    Sorry? Was he fucking kidding?
    I rolled over and crawled to my feet. Beneath the hair that fell in my face, I caught a glimpse of him opening the gate. Yelling Tom’s name, I hobbled after Johnson.
    Tom flew around the corner just as Johnson reached the same area. I clutched the gate with one hand and my aching butt with the other, but before I could warn Tom that Johnson wasn’t going quietly, the men clashed.
    Groaning, I pulled myself together, ready for round two, but Tom was quicker on the uptake than I was. He’d gotten to see my old-lady-with-a-bad-back act, and he must have figured out what to expect. So although Johnson had about six inches on Tom, the grappling didn’t last long. And when it was over seconds later, Tom had Johnson on his knees on the