Chapter 23 Reese #2
There is something comforting about knowing that someone is willing to fight for you, even if it's just over thoughts that are had about you.
I'm glad Zill isn't as impulsive and won't do something to someone over their thoughts.
But Kolos doing it feels like an older brother watching out for his family, and I like that even if it's not something I want in my partner.
"Come on." Isha urges me to keep moving toward the parking garage. "I messaged Brandr to have the transport ready five minutes ago, and he's going to be wondering where we are."
I follow after her, still a little embarrassed to be thinking of Zill and Kolos meeting anyone from my family.
A part of me thought I might be able to get away from all of them without Zill having to meet them, but as soon as Isha said who she thought they were meeting, I knew she was right.
Zill knows my issues with my family, knows how very much they don't want anything to do with him or me, and he's only trying to protect me.
I wouldn't want to be in his head while he was talking to someone from my family, but we'll talk later about him leaving that decision up to me instead of making it for me.
Isha steps out into the parking garage first. Her head swivels back and forth while her shadows remain eerily still on her torso. I can't see her facial expression, but her shoulders are tight, and her arms are tense.
"Is everything okay?" I ask, my heart starting to flutter wildly in my chest. I have no reason to be worried, but I've never seen Isha look so tense before, and since I can't see her face, it's hard to judge exactly what she's feeling.
"I can't hear anyone," Isha says quietly. "I don't like this."
"What do you–" I don't finish asking my question before Isha goes limp.
Her body crumples to the ground in front of me.
She pushes the door to the parking garage out, holding it open.
Her shadows shift and sway for a couple of seconds, long enough for my eyes to go wide and my hand to go to my mouth.
By the time they've pooled on the ground around her, I've fallen to my knees and am trying to turn her over, to see if she's hurt.
She has to be right? People, Sombrans, don't just collapse for no good reason.
Zill! I scream in my head, scream in his head. Even if I wanted to do the whole soft thing, now is not the time. If there was ever a time for screaming into someone else's mind, my bodyguard falling unconscious should be one of them.
Leave Isha, get back into the studio. Go to your dressing room and lock the door. Kolos and I are on our way. You need to hide. Zill's thoughts make everything come into agonizing focus.
When Isha fell, I thought for a split second she was sick or maybe epileptic.
But right before she'd dropped, she'd said that she couldn't hear anyone.
Even if we kicked everyone out of the building, Brandr was still waiting for us in the transport.
She should've been able to hear his thoughts, and if she couldn't hear those, then that means something had happened to him, too.
Reese, love, please. I need you to hide until I can get there.
That's a fine thought, and one I should be listening to. But just like when I realized my apartment had been broken into, my instinct is to freeze. I want to run, scream, hide, or fight. Honestly, I'd take anything over kneeling here next to Isha's unconscious body and shaking like a leaf.
I can't. I can't. For the first time, my words might actually go through softly in Zill's mind. It's not because I'm trying to make them do that, but because even in my own head, I'm paralyzed with fear.
Footsteps scuff against the concrete floor in the parking garage, and the slightest whimper comes out of my mouth as a figure appears.
I wish I could say that I know who he is, that his face is revealed, and everything falls into place.
But it isn't like that. He's tall, with tanned skin and dark, cropped short hair styled neatly.
He looks like a businessman, not some unhinged stalker.
My mind actually gives me a little spurt of hope for a moment. It tries to tell me that this man won't hurt me. He doesn't look like a monster. And then he smiles, and it's cold and dead and altogether unsettling as he stands above me.
"It's so nice to speak to you face to face finally," the man says.
I don't respond, can't respond. He doesn't seem to mind, or if he does, he isn't doing anything about it.
He tucks his hand into the pocket of his dress pants, and when he pulls it out, there's a syringe filled with some sort of liquid.
I shake harder, the only reaction I'm capable of, even if more than anything, I want to run right this very second.
"This will pinch, but I promise I don't want to hurt you," the man says, his tone almost apologetic.
He steps over Isha's unconscious body and kneels beside me, his palm caressing my cheek, brushing at the tears I didn't realize were wetting my face.
"I know things were heated between us, but I've decided to forgive you.
Now that you're mine, you're going to realize just how good I can treat you. "
"Please," I whimper, hating the catch in my throat, the way all of the breath feels like it's been pulled from my lungs.
"Shh, it's going to be okay. We're together now, and that's all that matters.
" He pulls me toward him, and I don't have the strength to fight him, don't have the strength to do anything but limply fall against him.
The bite of the needle is a pinch in my neck, and then he pushes down on the plunger. "There, now we can be together."
My mind grows groggy in an instant. The world sways around me, my own thoughts becoming a jumbled mess. I don't want to fall asleep, but whether I want it or not, it's happening. As the darkness begins to engulf me, Zill's thoughts are the last thing I hear.
Reese, we're coming. I swear we're–