Chapter Eight. The Huntsman #7
“Look, they could empty all of Mount Doom, and I’m still headed to that hospital. Nothing is going to keep me from checking on Penn. I need to put my eyes on her myself. That’s the only way I’ll feel that she’s safe. That she’s not…”
She trails off, and I glance over my shoulder, but Eshe stares straight ahead, her expression a clean slate that I can’t decipher.
The urge to stop—to pin her to the wall behind her by the throat and demand her thoughts, her feelings, her pain so I can’t just share but fucking gorge on her like a deranged incubus—snaps and snarls at me.
But I resist. Somehow, I resist and keep walking toward the door that should lead to another lower-level apartment but instead is an annex to an underground tunnel that leads to a garage nearly a block over.
Call me paranoid, but being this careful and vigilant has kept me alive this long. Having Eshe beside me has my shit itching. Not even Jamari has seen the inside of these walls, much less joined me here.
But now Eshe has.
I don’t want to dwell on what that means.
I jerk my chin toward the black Ford GT with the illegally tinted windows.
In seconds, we’re seated and rolling out of the garage onto the busy Dorchester Street.
She doesn’t say much during the twenty-minute ride to Mass General.
She’s so … still. No fidgeting. No talking.
Hell, I can’t even catch the soft sound of her breathing.
Not for the first time, I want to pry and discover what she’s thinking. Without rival, Eshe is the most fascinating creature I’ve ever encountered, and for the past few days, I’ve found myself obsessing over her. Wondering what lies under the layers.
Am I safer not knowing?
My fingers tighten on the steering wheel, and I shift slightly away from her, placing more of a mental distance between us than a physical.
The sooner I get her to the hospital and out of my car, the better.
Though, even with a car renowned for its speed, the last twenty minutes seem like twenty hours before I illegally park in front of the Charles/MGH stop. With her fingers wrapped around the handle, Eshe glances over at me.
“Thank you, Malachi,” she murmurs. “For everything.”
At the sound of that name, I glare at her, but she unflinchingly meets my gaze. And what I see there has the snarled admonishment extinguishing on my tongue.
Me popping up at both that cottage and her house to kill her didn’t faze her in the least.
Finding out her aunt put a hit on her didn’t scare her.
Discovering one of the most mysterious and successful assassins out there tried to kill her didn’t even cause her to flinch.
But this—this hospital, her friend inside—has fear fucking swimming in those eyes.
“Eshe…”
Before I can say anything else, she slips out of the car, firmly shutting the door behind her.
My scrutiny follows her as she crosses the street, steps on the sidewalk, and enters the front entrance of the hospital.
When those doors close behind her, I pull off, headed back toward the other side of town.
Except I don’t make it far before I’m whipping my Ford GT into an open parking spot a block over from the hospital.
“Fuck,” I growl, stepping out and locking the door.
This might be the dumbest thing I’ve done in recent history.
No, taking the job to kill Eshe Diallo was the dumbest, but this—following after her—is definitely a runner-up.
Everyone except for Eshe and Abena believes I’m dead.
It’s the best cover I could ask for to move unseen.
And look at me risking that shit. And for what?
Yeah, I still don’t have an answer.
Pulling my hoodie up over my head, I stick to the early-evening shadows and hurry back to the hospital, then slip in through a side entrance, avoiding security and cameras.
Mass General is a huge hospital, but it’s also very busy, and no one pays attention to me as I make my way to the intensive care unit.
The fuck am I doing?
My fists clench in the front pocket of my sweatshirt. The only answer I got is Eshe is my kill, no one else’s. But the answer, the justification for me stalking her down in this hospital, needing to lay eyes on her, sounds false in my head, tastes like a lie on my tongue.
The only thing that feels faintly truthful is she’s mine until she’s not.
I round the corner, nearing the bank of elevators and the main nurses’ station just as Eshe steps forward from a group of women of various shapes, sizes, and ethnicities.
They all bear the same menacing edge. They fan out around her like a protective living wall; the six women must be the rest of her Seven.
A tall, older white man with dark hair and a petite woman with golden-brown hair and burnished-brown skin emerge from a room directly across from the nurses’ desk.
Deep lines etch both their faces, and they stop in front of Eshe.
Though she’s obviously younger, they dip their heads in deference, and Eshe clasps their hands before embracing first the woman and then the man. They must be Penn Dawson’s parents.
I can’t hear their conversation from my position behind the wall, but Eshe appears to be comforting them before she eases past them to enter the hospital room. Two of the women—Tera Washington and Nef Grant—take up position on either side of the door, while the other four stand with Penn’s parents.
Eshe’s safe. No one’s getting in that room. Not with her personal guard here.
I can turn around and go about my business.
I should turn around and go about my business.
Which is hunting Abena and ridding her of that worthless thing she calls a life.
Eshe is on my list, but her aunt rides the top of it.
I dragged her out of that warehouse and delivered her back to her people. So yeah, I can go.
And yet, I remain standing here, hidden in plain sight, for several more minutes before finally leaving as silently as I arrived.