11. Eleven
I got a message from Ray an hour ago telling me to cut the run short and get back immediately. Nothing else. I didn’t bother asking any questions. I only responded saying I was on it, shoving my phone into my pocket and driving back as fast as I could. If they needed anything, or if there was an emergency I could help with they would have told me.
That’s how it is here. I get the bare minimum, nothing more, and that’s exactly what I want. Tucker and Rayner have learned by now that I am only here to repay Dane – a debt I will never be able to clear, no matter what I do. Nothing will ever be enough.
I’m not trying to build connections or experience some sort of pseudo-fraternity with these guys. I don’t want to bond. I don’t want to get to know them. I want to keep moving forward, put my past six feet under and leave it to rot.
In this situation, though, more information would have been welcomed. I wasn’t about to ask for it, but the idiots could’ve said something. Now the trees are rushing past my windows as quickly as the possibilities run through my mind. They want me back early, that’s the only fact I have. Out of every possible scenario, one pops up above the rest.
She’s dead.
Actually dead, not whatever freaky ass fake death she’s supposed to be able to pull off. My stomach churns, the memory of her lying in Tucker’s bed too fresh in my mind.
I tried not to look at her too closely, too directly, when it was my turn to check on her. Tried not to see the way her muscles were torn to ribbons. Nausea rose every time I caught her muscles twitching, the wounds pulling themselves back together in the most unsettling way I could imagine.
I groan, my knuckles turning white around the steering wheel. We just lost months of planning and working to get this girl out, all because of some bad information. We’re back at square one, except now we’ll have a body and a few boxes of girl shit to deal with.
I finally pull the truck into the clearing, fully expecting to see some evidence of the girl being dead. A sheet-wrapped body, or a freshly dug hole. Instead, I’m greeted with the sight of Dane trudging out of the woods with our new acquisition slung over his shoulder like she’s a sack of potatoes. She’s still wearing my shirt, but it’s torn and dirty with spots of blood dotting the once white fabric.
What the hell happened?
I take another second to study her while I pull closer to the house. She’s not small, necessarily. Short, yes, but no one would call her lithe. Even with her curves, I noticed the way that my shirt draped like a sheet over her comatose form. Now that she’s awake and seems to have put up one hell of a struggle at some point over the last day, it’s a completely different story.
Something in me lights up at the sight of her in my clothes like this. Something primal and possessive.
Her attention snaps up to me and everything stops.Every bit of my awareness centers on her face. Her brown eyes, the alertness of them. The pink of her lips. The strange paleness of her.The scratches and dirt peppering her skin.
I have the sudden urge to leap out of the truck, to storm over there and fight whatever it was that put her in this position. Pushing her to, from the looks of it, run for her life through the woods. I smother that thought entirely when I remember where we are and what we’re doing with her.
I was the one that put her in that position. Not me alone, but she was also running from me, even if she didn’t know it.
I cut the engine and tamp down the remainder of whatever was stirring inside of me. I take a moment to adjust myself before getting out of the truck, careful to hide any evidence of what those quick thoughts had done to me.
Ray is by my side before both of my boots even hit the ground, his usual shit eating grin plastered firmly on his face.
“I saw that.” He raises one eyebrow, underscoring his already obvious implication.
I grab my bag from the passenger seat and sling it onto my back, resolving to ignore him and his prying.
“Come on, Si! You’re no fun. I know you saw how hot she is.” He follows me around to the bed of the truck, not making any moves to help me take anything out of it.
I haul out one of the boxes and shove it into his arms. “Make yourself useful or go away.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” he mumbles sarcastically and sets the box on the ground, moving to grab more out of the back and stack them up.
“You know, those thighs feel just as soft and inviting as they look.”
I fumble my grasp, dropping the box I was holding. Fortunately, it’s not something fragile, just clothes for her. Though, after seeing her today, I wouldn’t be entirely upset if they were somehow ruined by the drop.
Ray’s howling laughter echoes across the clearing. Of course, he knows exactly which buttons to push to get a reaction out of me. After years and years of his nonsense, I can’t say I’m surprised.
“I’m done, unload the truck yourself,” I grumble, more than ready to get away from him.
“Come on Silas, don’t you want to hear about how I got to pin her down after she tried to shoot me?”
Hold up.
I turn back to Ray fast enough he almost jumps. “What the fuck do you mean she tried to shoot you?”
She’s got fire, I’ll give her that. She might be my new favorite person from that alone.
“Tuck left his shit on the nightstand, she found it, and, well - bang.”
Goddamn Tucker. If she doesn’t manage to kill us first, he might manage to get us all killed anyway.