Chapter Sixteen
Hunter
Moving almost entirely on instinct, I flick off the bathroom light and crack the door so I can see into the bedroom. My eyes adjust quickly to the darkness. Streetlights in front of the inn cast a muted glow through the windows, turning the room dull and shadowy.
Without making a sound, I peer into the room, watching and listening for any hint of movement. For a long moment, I wonder if I had imagined the sound of the door being unlocked and opened. Everything is still and silent, except for Dylan’s even breathing from the bed.
Then I see it: a shadow in the darkness, huge and solid, and definitely not there before. My heart slams against my chest. What the fuck do I do?
My first instinct is to throw myself at whoever is out there, slam him to the floor and find out what the hell he wants. But Dylan is sleeping blissfully unaware between us, and I won’t do anything that will risk him.
The shadow moves, and my breath lodges in my throat. The figure is tall and broad, black and shapeless in the nighttime gloom. It moves forward, toward the bed, toward Dylan.
I don’t think. I don’t plan. My body reacts before my brain even realizes what I’m doing. I burst out of the bathroom. “Hey!”
The word barely leaves my mouth, and I’m already moving. Adrenaline surges through me like an electric charge, and I launch myself at the figure, even as it bolts for the door.
My knee, which had been feeling better, screams in protest as soon as I put weight on it, white-hot pain flaring beneath the skin, but I ignore it. I’m across the room in three strides, slamming into the intruder just as he’s yanked the door open.
The impact knocks us both sideways, sending us stumbling into the hall. My breath explodes from my lungs, and the man beneath me lets out an airy grunt before scrambling to twist free of my grip.
Behind me, I hear Dylan’s voice in the darkness, thick with sleep and confusion. He must have woken when I shouted, because seconds later his footsteps are pounding after us. “What—Hunter?”
The intruder drives an elbow into my gut, stealing my breath, before twisting free of my grip and bolting down the hall toward the stairs.
Footsteps pound down the hallway, and I scramble to my feet, limping after him, fury and fear driving me forward.
Behind me, I can hear Dylan yelling and chasing after us. The hall is darker than the room, but I can still make out the intruder at the top of the stairwell before rushing down the stairs two at a time.
I grab the thick banister and lunge after him.
My heart hammers so hard and fast against my chest that I absently think it might burst through.
Halfway down the stairs, pain detonates from my knee, spiraling up my leg like invisible shrapnel, and my knee gives out from under me, sending me stumbling forward.
My grip tears free of the railing, and I fall.
I hit the stairs hard, shoulder first, then hip, then everything blurs into a violent tumble of wood and bone and breathless shock. The sound is enormous—thuds and cracks and a strangled yell rips from my throat that I barely recognize as me.
I finally come to a stop in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, sprawled across the inn’s tidy foyer in nothing but my underwear.
For a moment, I can’t move. I can’t breathe. Every instinct tells me to stay exactly where I am. Pain floods everything, radiating outward from my knee in sickening waves. This is not just the weather or overuse. Something is wrong. My vision swims.
Distantly, I hear the front door slam as our intruder vanishes into the night. Shit!
“Hunter!”
Dylan skids to a stop at the top of the stairs, then rushes down, terror etched into his face. He drops to his knees beside me, hands hovering as if he’s unsure where to touch.
“Oh my god,” Dylan breathes. “Don’t move. Don’t—are you—”
I try to laugh it off, but it comes out as an airy wheeze.
“He got away,” I say, hating the tremble in my voice. “Sorry.”
Dylan’s face crumples with relief and fear all at once. “You’re sorry? What the hell were you thinking?” he asks fiercely. “You could have been killed!”
“Someone was in our room,” I tell him through clenched teeth. “He was standing over you while you slept. I think it’s the same person who went through our things.”
Dylan’s hands finally land, one gripping my shoulder while the other gently brushes my knee before he pulls back. His gaze flicks over me, no doubt cataloging injuries.
“I’m okay,” I tell him, and try to sit up, but Dylan presses harder on my shoulder and forces me to stay where I am.
“Can you move your toes?” he asks.
I swallow and nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
“Okay.” Dylan lets out a shaky breath. “Okay. That’s good. That’s good.”
He presses his forehead briefly to my shoulder, a silent, trembling moment of grounding, then straightens.
“I’m sorry,” Dylan says, voice cracking. “I should’ve woken up sooner. I should never have gotten you mixed up in this. I dragged you into this, and you got hurt because of it.”
“Hey.” I reach up and cup his face with my hand, forcing him to meet my gaze. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
He shakes his head and says again, “You could’ve been killed.”
“I’m okay,” I try to assure him, and despite feeling like I just spent the last twenty minutes in a blender, I’m pretty sure I am. “Help me up.”
Dylan shakes his head. “I don’t think you should move until the paramedics look at you. I need to call 911, but my phone’s upstairs, and I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I’m pretty sure our intruder...”
“No, I know the minute I go upstairs, you’ll get up and probably try to go after the guy.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, no, not tonight.”
“When I got to the top of the stairs, and I saw you on the floor—” His breath catches. “I thought you were dead.” The idea clearly still terrifies him.
“Not tonight,” I say again.
Dylan leans down and wraps his arms around me carefully, mindful of my injuries, and I close my eyes and let myself lean into him, even though I know better.
For a second, the chaos fades—the intruder, Matthew, even the pain. For just a moment, it’s just us, tangled together on the cold wooden floor, breathing each other in.
“What in the hell?” The overhead light turns on, and Jim stands at the top of the hallway, looking at us like an alien species. In his defense, he probably didn’t often come across two men in their underwear holding each other in his foyer.
“I was asleep in the back,” he says, as if answering the question before it’s asked.
We clearly woke him. He’s dressed in thin, striped white and blue pajamas, an undershirt that had likely started off as white but had yellowed over time and clings to his rounded belly. His hair stands up at odd angles, and he blinks at us owlishly.
“Someone broke into our room,” Dylan says, easing away from me, which I don’t like, and I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from asking him to stay. “Hunter fell down the stairs. Can you call 911?”
“Who was in your room?” Jim asks.
“It was too dark to see,” I tell him. The adrenaline is ebbing away, and I’m starting to feel every stair I fell down. I try to shift, but pain flares, and I let out a slow hiss.
“No moving,” Dylan says, then turns his attention to Jim. “Please, can you call for help?”
“Of course, yes.” Jim hurries away; I assume to find a phone.
“You’re probably freezing. I should grab you a blanket.”
Pants would be better. But instead, I grab Dylan’s hand. “Please don’t leave me.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
Dylan squeezes my hand and brushes my hair back from my forehead with his other hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”