13 #2
It’s over just as his eyes open.
The look that meets me is blistering.
His gaze sweeps down until it catches my still-bare thighs like a physical touch.
The muscles at his neck work as he swallows. He doesn’t pretend not to look. He doesn’t soften the moment.
I drag my trousers back up with shaky fingers.
As soon as I am done, I lunge past him and snatch the camera from where it hangs behind his shoulder, my hand colliding briefly with it – fucking solid as brick.
‘Ten,’ I grind out in a dare.
I don’t know if what’s driving me is rage or the raw, crawling aftermath of violation.
Because beneath the nausea and fury, my body is brewing a response I neither asked for nor know what to do with.
For a fraction of a second, he stands there.
Then his fist slams the door open. He’s on me again – guiding, blocking, herding me out of the stall and towards the basins, as if we haven’t broken into pieces and barely held them together.
Women in the lavatory stare as we wash our hands and walk out in silence.
The terminal arches wide above us in panes of glass and steel, letting the light and the cold through, but my skin still carries the heat of that stall.
A burst of motion catches the edge of my vision – a businessman with carry-ons, children swinging plush toys, airport staff in navy uniforms rushing about.
The moment slows. Freezes.
We stop just shy of Gate A2.
Elias reaches into his coat and pulls out a set of boarding passes. Beneath the ones we scanned in London are two more.
New destination.
My mouth parts.
He separates them with his thumb, squinting at the print, and I catch my name across the top one.
My name.
I stare at it, my mind refusing to do anything with that information.
But suddenly the pieces start dropping into place.
I never booked another flight. I never checked in for it. I certainly never gave him the details he would have needed.
Yet he’s holding that boarding pass with my name between his fingers.
Everything since the last gate has become a jumble of hands, threats and corridors, each moment blurring into the next. I’ve been so dazed by everything that it hasn’t even occurred to me that he must have planned this.
The thought opens like a wound.
How far does this plan reach?
How much had he done or known before he walked up behind me?
He glances up at the overhead monitor, scanning until his gaze locks on something.
My brows furrow as I follow his eyes, struggling to focus on the destination displayed beside the gate: HARSTAD/NARVIK – EVE.
Where the fuck is Harstad Narvik?
My fingers move instinctively to my coat pocket, searching for my phone, but they find only fabric before memory catches up.
He’d taken it from me.
His eyes meet mine. The light is washed out by the cloud cover, yet even so, it spills through the glass ceiling. But they don’t need the sunlight – his eyes. They glow like sea-kissed glass. Luminous. Otherworldly.
I’m already tracing the edge of the bag where I know the shutter sleeps.
Firm fingers curl around my wrist as though he’s marking territory. Then his gaze sweeps the surroundings, his shoulders squaring.
He spots something. I’m being pulled again, dragged between tired passengers, past a kiosk playing tinny music and a rack of overpriced scarves.
My cheeks are still warm, the events in the lavatory still vivid before my eyes and writhing under my skin.
He’d warned me, hadn’t he? Said he had a temper.
And I hadn’t even done the basic fucking research. His file had been right there. I merely skimmed the warnings, read some of them twice, and still walked into that place thinking about the human behind bars instead of what the paperwork said about him.
Professor Laurie’s voice haunts me from my first year of university, biting as ever. The reprimand about my poor research skills or lack of interest.
I groan loud enough that Elias turns his head to look me over. When I don’t supply an explanation, his expression folds into that signature calm of his.
‘We’ll have breakfast in a minute,’ he says.
His assumption is misplaced, but not entirely false. At the mention of it, my stomach does flip at the sight of warm croissants, and the scent of filter coffee that hisses out from a nearby restaurant.
Catching on my interest, he drags me to the closest till and orders without asking what I want. A sandwich for me. Two for him. I bet he could eat a small horse and still be hungry.
‘I’d prefer a croissant,’ I protest when he hands me the paper-wrapped bun stuffed with ham and enough vegetables to make it taste medicinal.
‘Turkey ham is good protein. It’ll keep you going for a while. You’ll need your strength for the trip.’
I’m restless as we take a seat further from people.
What the hell kind of trip are we making?
But I don’t ask any more. And he doesn’t say.
Anxiety creeps back in, eager to take hold. I bite into the sandwich as I shut my eyes tight, hoping to push away the ideas that surge to mind.
We’re pressed against the window that overlooks the tarmac. Planes glint ominously like mechanical beasts at rest, waiting to open their jaws and swallow me.
Just the sound of plastic water bottles cracking open resounds between us as we eat.