Jenalyn: Crossing Lines (#4) [Complete]

Chapter 36: Dane

Sunday, 11:16 P.M. EST

I should be angrier when I come home to find that Jenalyn is no longer in the spare room where I left her, but let’s be real. I Called Ev and Sierra over to finish bagging up my last shipment.

Why wouldn’t she be out of the damned room?

It’s my own fault for failing to enforce that she be left in there when I gave the rundown to Sierra. I can’t be mad though; Jena sleeps on my bed, but she could have tried to make a run for it again.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I ask after opening my bedroom door, my voice loud enough to pull Jena from her sleep in a panic. She turns around to face me. 

Her face is pretty fucking torn up. She’s showered, but the swollen eye and gashes on each of her cheeks are still most prominent.

She sits up with a quickness I notice she regrets once the pain it inflicted catches up with her. She winces first from sitting up too fast, and then again from wincing while her face is so battered.

“I- I’m sorry!” she wastes no time before pleading, her face apprehensive. 

I can’t help a part of me from being glad what I did to her earlier is having an effect; She hasn’t been this afraid of me in a long time. 

“I just really needed to shower!” she continues despite my obvious disinterest in hearing anything she’s got to say. “I was covered in blood! I wasn’t going to leave or anything, I just-” 

“Chill out.” I cut her off, dropping my duffel bag on the dresser beside my TV before tearing it open. I seek out the Hindu Kush I’d just scored down in Philly before turning back to her. “Do you think I didn’t account for your cunning ways? I had Ev come over for Pete’s sake! I knew you’d be out.”

I see Jena wearing a look of confusion through the mirror attached to the back of my desk. “You… you didn’t lock me in the room? she asks, her voice perplexed.

I tear open the bag of Kush and break off a fat nugget to break down and roll up. “No, I definitely locked you in there,” I tell her matter-of-factly as I seal the blunt. I light it before continuing. “I’m not a dunce though. I expected Ev to let you out… granted she pull herself from the needle long enough.”

She looks as if she doesn’t know how to respond. Only now that I’m calm do I hate to see what I’ve done to her face. I don’t let it affect me though; I can’t.

She did this to us. 

“I don't get it though…” she mumbles under her breath before turning to me again. “You didn’t tell them to keep me in there?”

What is she having such a hard time understanding? I’ve finally allowed myself to cool from the rage she induced, and she’s itching to spark it again!

“God damnitt Jenalyn!” I snap, handing her the blunt. I’m thankful when she doesn’t put up a fight to smoke it. “Are you trying to piss me off?!”

She hits the blunt, wincing in pain again when she coughs out her hit. The split on her cheek cracks open and blood fills the crevice again waiting to scab. 

I don’t want to do this to her again.

“No…” she mutters after a moment, handing the blunt back to me.“But… why did you lock me in the room if you knew she’d let me out?”

I let out a frustrated sigh. “Because I had a lapse of judgment! Alright?!” I growl, feeling my blood begin to pump angrily through my veins. Why doesn’t she know when to stop? “I thought you’d try to leave after having your face beat in, but then I remembered- you’re you.”