Chapter 12 Aoife
Aoife
Iwake up sideways.
That’s the first thing. I’m on top of the covers, not under them, curled on my side with my knees pulled up, and for approximately three seconds, I have no idea where I am. White ceiling. White walls. A curtain I don’t own. A pillow that smells like fabric softener and not the cheap stuff.
Then it all comes back.
I close my eyes again. Open them. Still here.
The light through the curtain is softer than it was. Evening, maybe. I’ve slept for a few hours at least, which is either a sign of exhaustion or dissociation. I sit up and push my hair out of my face and sit on the edge of the bed for a second, taking stock.
Body: functional. Knuckles: sore and tight under the butterfly strips. Brain: operational but running on emergency power only.
The t-shirt has ridden up, and I tug it back down before I stand.
A slight whirring noise alerts me to Aran in the hallway outside the bedroom. I creep over and crack the door an inch. He’s fixing the bathroom door, screwing new hinges into place as if he kicks doors in all the time. He turns to look at me, and I clear my throat.
“Do that often?” I joke.
“More often than you’d think. Just not on my own doors.” He goes back to work with the electric screwdriver, seemingly capable of holding the door in place with one hand while the other works the screws. This man is not only a giant but immensely strong.
A shiver skitters over my skin that he is standing between me and whoever is coming for me.
I realize how much shit I’m in now, and it’s not his fault. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he did save me. I’ve been nothing but a pain in his ass since.
Although he deserves it purely for throwing me into the trunk of his car.
But still.
“I’m sorry that I’ve put you in this position,” I murmur when he stops screwing to adjust the door angle.
He freezes for a moment and looks at me again. “You didn’t,” he says and goes back to work.
I stand there awkwardly, wishing he had absolved me instead of just disagreeing with me. I have no idea what to do. Going back into the room isn’t an option, and neither is walking past him to go downstairs while he fixes the door I made him break.
Moving forward, I edge past him into the bathroom and grip the edge of the door, holding it in place.
His gaze goes to my knees first and then drags up my body, while his mouth curves up on the left side. “I’ve got it.”
“I know you do. But let me help.”
He looks at my hands on the door and then at me, and something in his expression shifts.
Not much. Just enough.
“You’re going to pull those strips,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
He doesn’t argue. He just adjusts the angle slightly, and I adjust my grip to match, and we work like that for a minute.
Him driving the screws home, me holding the door steady, neither of us talking.
The electric screwdriver whirs and stops, whirs and stops.
His hand brushes mine when he repositions, and I feel the heat of it all the way up my shoulder.
I stare at the door frame.
“Test it,” he says.
I swing the door. It moves clean on its hinges, no drag, no catch. I swing it back. “Good job.”
He packs up the screwdriver and the spare screws into a small toolkit. I step back into the bathroom doorway, arms folded, watching him.
“My clothes need moving to the dryer.”
“I already did it. They’re dry and folded in the laundry room.”
I don’t know what to do with that. I stand there in the bathroom doorway in his t-shirt with my arms folded and my hair a mess, and I don’t know what to do with any of it.
“Thank you,” I say, because it’s the only thing I’ve got.
He picks up the toolkit and straightens to his full height, and I take a step back automatically, which I’m starting to think is just a reflex my body has developed in the last several hours, like blinking.
“Are you hungry?”
“I could eat.”
He moves past me toward the stairs, and I follow.
He stops halfway down the stairs, and I bump into him. His hand shoots out to steady me, shaking his head slightly, a serious expression crossing his face.
“What?” I ask.
He lifts his finger to his mouth in a shush gesture, and my mouth goes dry. “Stay here,” he murmurs.
He moves off before I’ve agreed to anything, and I clutch the t-shirt in suddenly sweaty palms. Have they found me? Whoever they is. I stand frozen on the step, heart thudding so hard it feels stupid. Loud. Like it should be echoing off the walls.
Down below, I hear nothing.
I grip the banister and stare down the stairwell. Aran is at the bottom, pulling a gun free from the back of his pants.
I gulp as Aran moves towards the kitchen. I hear a faint noise. Not a crash, but a definite noise of something going wrong.
The house goes still.
Then I hear it again.
A scrape. Metal on something hard.
My throat tightens.
“Don’t,” I hear Aran’s voice so deathly calm, my blood turns to ice.
“O’Neill,” a male’s voice states. “You have something we want.”
I stop breathing.
My hands clamp on the banister hard enough to sting my knuckles.
I should go back upstairs. That seems sensible. Quietly. Slowly. Get into the guest room. Lock the door.
I don’t move. I can’t.
Aran’s voice comes again, flat and cold. “You’re trying to break into my house. That is your first mistake.”
The other man laughs once. “That was just to get your attention. If we’d knocked, you wouldn’t have answered.”
“What is it you think I have?” Aran asks.
“I think you know exactly what,” the man says.
His voice is close. Too close. Kitchen close.
My pulse is in my throat now, thick and ugly. I ease one foot back up the stair, then stop because the floorboard under me gives the tiniest creak, and I nearly die on the spot.
“Give her to us, and this doesn’t get ugly.”
Us? Fuck.
My heart thumps painfully.
“Not a chance,” Aran says. “You made a very bad mistake coming here.”
I hear a ping, and I jump a mile, slamming my hand over my mouth, as another one follows.
“Aoife,” Aran’s voice is calm. “Get upstairs now. My room. Lock the door.”
I don’t wait. I move.
I take the rest of the stairs two at a time.
His bedroom door is open.
I dive inside and slam it shut behind me, hands shaking so hard I nearly miss the lock. It clicks. I back away from the door, chest heaving, eyes darting around the room looking for somewhere to hide. Bathroom.
I hurry to the en-suite and close the door, locking it behind me. I wring my hands looking for a weapon, but there is nothing of use. I lower the lid on the toilet and sit, pulling my knees up, and I wait.