Chapter 20
Bohnes
Scarlett wakes up in the middle of the night, breathing hard. Confused about where she is. Oh, my undead dove.
She blinks through the gloom, staring up at the distant ceiling of the warehouse above us.
She turns her head to the right and there I am, lying on my side to watch her sleep.
My expression doesn’t change, but my hand slides over the generous curve of her naked hip to rest in the crook of her nipped waist.
On the other side of her, Alexei Grove-Borisov has tumbled into a restless slumber.
Far too close to my back, there’s Widow and, beyond him, Ash Kelly.
Not a position I would ever have imagined to find myself in.
Not a position I ever wanted to be in, but now that I’m here, I must admit: the extra manpower is helpful.
Running a crime syndicate—as Scarlett so beautifully phrased it—is not easy all by one’s lonesome.
“Nightmare?” I ask her, and then I grin through the gloom. I wonder if she can see the white of my teeth in the shadows? “Not my sort, but the dream kind.”
“Do you ever sleep?” she whispers tenderly, waiting patiently for me to answer.
It takes a while. I’m putting a lot of thought into this one, my grin fading away into a neutral frown.
The shifting of bodies around us—the caught breath here when Ash thrashes a little, the soft, sad sound from Alexei there, an annoyed growl from Mr. Lawless—it’s all so foreign to me.
I’ve lived alone since I was ten years old.
I don’t…despise this.
“I didn’t much before,” I admit. “It’ll be a little easier now, with extra soldiers.
” I drum my fingers against Scarlett’s warm, silky skin.
I’m living with these people from now on.
I’m living with three other psychos. I’m the fourth.
My dearest deceased (because she was indeed legally dead for a moment there) is the fifth.
The things us five have in common are dark. Like violence. Like body counts (the kill kind, not the fuck kind). Like adrenaline addictions. Like secrets. Like cars. Like Scarlett.
She burrows into my blankets, listening to the sound of nothing outside. Woods. Just woods. An ideal location, easy to hear if we’re being creeped on or attacked.
“Go to sleep,” she tells me, but I only shake my head. “Please?”
“It’s my shift, deadly darling. I can’t go to sleep just now.”
She reaches out and puts a hand on the side of my face, digging her nails in until I hiss in pleasure.
“I’m allowed to take a shift, too. I’m not going to let you take care of me like that.
I’m not built to live a life that relies on others.
Don’t do that to me.” She keeps her hand where it is until I heave a weary sigh.
I am tired, but we’re on rotation. I agreed to go first. It’s been almost six hours, and though I was supposed to wake Lawless after two, I just couldn’t do it.
By nature, I am reclusive, aggressive, and distrusting.
The world taught me to be this way. I did not expect to fall in love or feel attraction for anyone, ever.
I’m quite certain that Scarlett is the only one for me.
By trying to control her, I sent her distrusting nature into a spiral.
That’s why we have three other men in bed with us, and I understand that. I even empathize.
Now that they’re here, I should use them to my advantage. Alexei, I trust to a certain extent. We have the same goals and similar methods. But to snore with Lawless looking down at me? Ugh. And…Ash.
Oh, that horrible race. I can admit a mistake when I make one (rare), but I did not expect Ash to play the villain in his efforts to be a hero.
Scarlett was quite right: he crumpled under her hands.
Could I sleep with him watching over me?
I clench my jaw, but Scarlett’s clever fingers dance along the side of my face.
“Want to get up with me for a few?” she whispers, and I nod.
Together, we push back my covers and crawl from the bed. My soulmate is naked, so I fish out one of my sweaters and some joggers for her to wear. She carries them out of the room and I follow, closing the bedroom door behind us and resisting the urge to lock the others in.
The house is quiet, a single light above the kitchen sink casting its dim glow across my humble abode.
Scarlett drags the white sweatshirt over her head, covering up her beautiful breasts.
She’s careful when she puts the joggers on, facing me so that her pussy isn’t any more of a temptation than it already is.
I rub my chin and sigh, pushing up the too-long-sleeves of my own white hoodie.
It’s unzipped, no shirt underneath. I can see that she likes the flash of abs as I throw the hood up over my hair.
“Have a smoke with me?” I ask, lifting a querying brow and she nods, tucking still-damp hair behind her ears. It’s dark out now. We’ve slept through what was left of Sunday. I give my phone a brief check, but there are no messages from any of my contacts. Good.
“Fuck yeah. More food would be nice, too.” She eyes my cabinets longingly and I flash another wild grin.
“I’ll make you some pancakes.” I drag a few pairs of footwear from the old crate near the door where I keep extra shoes. I toss a pair at Scarlett, fuzzy black ones with skulls on the toes. I’ll wear these slip-on sneakers with ouija board designs. Lovely.
We move between the Chevelle and the Pantera (aww, what a lovely couple our cars make) to unlock the front door. I drag it open, letting the frigid night air in. There’s a layer of frost across the grass and on the windows of the old bus.
I wait for Scarlett to join me and then pull the door shut again to keep the warmth in. We have space heaters here and that’s about it. HVAC was not an option.
Our feet crunch across the gravel as we move over to the bus like we’re of one mind, climbing in and squeezing our bodies together on the single remaining seat. I have a handful of clove cigarettes left, pulling one out and lighting up before passing it to Scarlett.
“Where do you get these?” she breathes, shuffling her feet a little against the cold, teeth chattering. It’s not that we can’t smoke inside, but we need to have a bit of a chat.
Fuck. I grit my teeth and do my best not to scowl. It’s not Scarlett that I’m angry with. Not at all. Never.
“I have a contact who sells them,” I admit with a loose shrug of one shoulder, my arm brushing against Scarlett’s. I wait for her to hand the cigarette back, putting it between my teeth as I drag the zipper up. Even a ghoul like me gets cold in winter weather.
“Don’t buy too many. Those things are addicting, and I really don’t want us to end up with lung cancer.” Scarlett sighs and leans her head back, closing her eyes. She looks better now that she’s had some sleep, but I know her too well. She’s coping, but she’s not processing. Us. She said us.
I inhale, hold the sweet-scented smoke in my lungs, and hand the cigarette back before exhaling.
It’s deadly quiet out here, white spiderwebs of frost crawling up the windows, the creak of branches in an arctic breeze. There are some things we need to talk about. I was hoping to wait or, better yet, allow one of the others to delve into these subjects, but our timeline is now truncated.
“You were first,” Scarlett begins softly, staring at the cherry of the smooth black cigarette between her inked fingers.
She turns to me and I lift my brow again, curious to see where this is going.
“You were first and enough. I’m the problem, me.
I was afraid of you. Still am, if I’m being totally honest. You know what happens in Prescott between boys and girls.
” She reaches up to rub at her forehead, nearly burning her hair with the cigarette.
I grab her wrist and carefully extract it, my cobwebby heart sputtering to life and spilling fresh blood along my fragile, tender bones.
I always thought I was happy being alone, but that’s a great lie I told myself to cope.
Just like Scarlett. Coping but not processing.
Now that I’m with her, I never want to be alone again.
“You would’ve been happy with just me?” I ask, wondering what that would’ve been like.
“Easily.” Scarlett tucks her knees up on the seat and wraps her arms around them, her hair falling in cold, wet hanks over my right arm, coiling on my lap.
“But now that I have them, I don’t want to let them go.
” She swallows, like she’s trying to put unnecessary feelings in her belly for later.
“I just need you to understand that you’re not only my Nightmare, I’m also yours. ”
I sit there with the cigarette in my hand, smoke curling into the frigid air. I’m speechless. Utterly speechless.
I want to argue with her. I am the one who’s going to care for her, protect her, haunt her. That’s what I want to do, what I want to say. Scarlett has told me enough times already that she’s not interested in that. She wants…a mutual love. A mutual affection. A mutual care.
My, my, my. Always surprising me, this dark love of mine.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” she asks suddenly, breaking the silence before I can do it. “We shouldn’t sit out here too long. It’s cold as fuck.”
I smile, but it’s reserved, taking another drag on the cig before I hand it back.
“Ash keeps trying to confide in me, and frankly, it’s disturbing.
” I pull my legs up, same as Scarlett, mimicking her position.
She sighs lovingly, like everything I do is charming to her.
Ah, sweet succulent triumph. I’ve charmed her by simply being my disturbed self.
I lay my cheek on my knees and she does the same, holding the cigarette between us so we can both revel in the smoke.
“He’s confiding in you?” she asks with a bit of a kick in her voice, and I get this weird feeling in my chest. Warmth? Is the idea of me and Ash having a bromance doing something for her? “That’s good, isn’t it?”