Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
J
A soft rustling sound jolts me out of deep sleep.
My eyes burst open, and I see a shadow looming over my bed.
What the heck?
Fight or flight instincts take over.
I thrash and kick, aiming for my attacker. My watch’s firm chirp is my trusty sidekick, cheering me on. But my punches soon lose their power, and my legs sink back into the bed.
I gasp for air.
It’s too much exertion. My energy sputters out before I can even get to a sitting position.
Oh no. Oh no.
Adrenaline speeds through my body, and my brain tells me to push, to get up, to run.
But I can’t.
All I can do is call for help.
As I open my mouth to scream, a rough hand covers mine. “It’s me.”
I smell a familiar fragrance, and my eyes zip to the shadow in my room. Finn leans forward, stepping out of the dark. The moonlight caresses his square jaw, straight nose, and deep, bottomless brown eyes.
“Finn?” A sudden, striking pain shoots through every crevice of my chest. “Ah.” I roll over into a ball, tucking my head between my knees.
Finn’s hand withdraws. “I’ll call a doctor.”
“I-it’s fine. Just open that drawer.”
“Are you—”
“The drawer, Finn.”
“This one?” He points.
I nod. “You can flip on the light.”
He does, and the soft lamp on my nightstand spreads an orange glow over the room. The pain that had been gripping me goes away as quickly as it rushed in, but my chest still feels tight. I straighten up slowly, taking deep breaths.
Finn rummages through my drawer. He’s wearing a black T-shirt and black pants. Darkness personified. I study him. Something’s odd. He seems extra on edge. His jaw is clenched, and his movements are jerky.
“What am I looking for?” he asks, rifling through my drawer.
I avert my eyes. “My pills. They’re in the little brown book with the gold lettering.”
“Here.” He shakes out a pill and sets it in my palm. To my surprise, he also uncaps a water bottle for me right away.
I swallow the medicine and sink into the pillows. The pills will take a while to work, but honestly, I already feel better.
Placebo effect for the win.
“Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?” Finn asks.
“I’m sure. These pills have been amazing at regulating my heartbeat.”
He makes a disgruntled sound in his throat.
I fold my arms over my chest. “What were you doing staring creepily at me in the middle of the night?”
“I got your text.”
“I sent that text hours ago. Why’d it take you so long to get here?”
His jaw tightens.
Getting answers out of Finn Cross is pointless. His entire life is a door I can’t open, so I don’t push it. “Didn’t your brothers tell you about the four words I decrypted?”
“They did.”
“And you didn’t believe them?”
“I wanted to see it for myself,” he answers grumpily.
I check my phone and balk at the time. “Finn, it’s three A.M.”
“I’m aware.” He runs his hands through his hair. The silky strands flop upward and then fall messily over his forehead. It’s unfair that Finn looks ten times hotter when his hair is mussed.
“Well, the message isn’t in my drool. It’s on the computer.” I point sleepily to the desktop and wait for him to shuffle away.
Finn keeps standing there, staring down at me.
I stare back. What’s his deal?
And then I realize that it’s three A.M., one of the hottest guys in the world is in my bedroom, and he’s not here to kill me.
Maybe this is all a dream.
“Come here,” I say.
Finn’s eyes narrow slightly.
“Let me slap you to make sure you’re real.”
His lips twitch.
“Scared?”
“If you think this is a dream, you should be hitting yourself. Not me.”
“Why would I do that?” I bat my eyelashes. “When you’re right there?”
His lips curl into a slightly wider smile, and warmth spreads through me.
“What’s this?” Finn opens the book that he took the pills from. “A book of promises?”
“They’re Bible verses.”
He turns to the page where I keep the bag of pills.
“My grandmother highlighted all of those.” I nod to the words. “When I got too excited or too scared, she would hold me and whisper her favorite verse over and over.”
If I close my eyes, I can still hear her voice wafting over me, making the world go quiet. “Be still and know.”
“I thought you never lived outside of the hospital,” Finn says, watching me.
His tone seems genuinely curious, but my brain is scrambled, and I could be misinterpreting everything. Who knows? He could be fishing to find evidence that I’m Jinx.
I decide to share anyway. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to talk to someone about my grandmother.
“My grandmother believed I could live a normal life, so she took me away. I stayed with her on her milk farm for a few years.”
“You were a farm girl?”
“Is that a problem?”
Finn scrunches his nose. “You can’t even run.”
“Okay, the way you said that was hurtful.”
He smiles. “Did you ever chase down a cow?”
“I don’t chase, Finn. I attract.”
He laughs. The deep, velvety sound fits him to a T. Even his laughter is princely.
I smile as the golden glow in my chest intensifies. I like making Finn laugh. A lot. “The cows weren’t my responsibility, but I did herd the chickens in and out of the henhouse. It was a very important task.”
“I can imagine.” He sits on the edge of my bed.
I scoot over to make room. It feels so comfortable having him close to me—when he’s not threatening to kill me by sleeping with me.
“Why’d you leave the farm?”
A lump forms in my throat.
Finn’s eyes dim. “Oh.”
I clear my throat, fighting not to get emotional. “Let me, um”—I inhale—“let me show you the decryption.”
To my surprise, a pair of big hands close on my shoulders. Finn pulls me to his chest so I’m half-leaning off the bed. With my nose scrunched against his shirt, I get a whiff of his clean, woodsy cologne.
My watch beeps as I stutter, “W-what are you doing?”
I expect him to say something mildly comforting. On the spectrum of delusion, I may even be hoping he’ll say something romantic.
But instead, Finn hisses, “The door.”
I tilt my head up in confusion. “What?”
“I saw someone looking in.”
“This is the hospital.” I whisper because he’s whispering too. “Nurses are always—”
“Not a nurse.”
“It’s probably just a fan or the paparazzi then,” I mumble. The entire hospital was in an uproar after Dutch and Zane showed up today. The admin had to make an announcement on the PA system about rules of conduct.
Finn’s palm flattens on the back of my head. His hands are so big, his middle-finger-to-thumb ratio is like the span of a tennis racket, and my skull is the tennis ball.
When he presses me forward, it feels like I’m being adjusted by a bulldozer.
“Look,” he orders between gritted teeth. “But don’t make it obvious.”
I peek reluctantly past him. I don’t expect anything or anyone to be outside, but to my surprise, I see two faces peering into my room. They vanish just as quickly.
My heart jumps in alarm, and my fingers clench around Finn’s waist. I hide my face in his chest as fear tornadoes through me.
My watch beeps.
“How many?” Finn growls.
“T-two.”
The gentleness I saw when Finn was laughing with me about my farm girl days drains away, leaving something inhuman behind.
He wraps his arms around my waist, lays me down, and bends over me in the bed. His hard body pushes mine deeper into the mattress.
My watch beeps faster.
His words are low and even, but I sense the urgency beneath them when he orders, “Take the knife out of my front left pocket.”
My eyes widen, and I stare up at his face.
“Now, J.”
I sweep my trembling fingers over his jeans and dip into his pocket. The knife is a bulge in his pants, and I grip it and pull on it until it’s free. In the moonlight, all I can see is the intricate carving on the knife’s handle. The blade is covered by a thick brown case.
Finn looks down, his mouth a thin slash of menace over his face. “When I leave, get up and go to the bathroom. If anyone walks in—”
“You want me to stab them?” I gasp.
His hard expression doesn’t waver. Finn straightens to his full height and pulls my comforter up to my shoulder. Tucking me in gently, he pats the hand holding the knife under the blanket and disappears out the door.