CHAPTER 46
Eve
I stand above her looking up toward the top of the stairs to the door.
I'm waiting for something, but I don't know what.
Is he up there? Is he hurt? Have they found us?
The door rattles and I know this is it. They have found us.
The threat is at our door. I knew she couldn't be trusted.
I run to the shelves and grab my best defenses.
The blade belt and a set of brass knuckles.
I walk back over to the whip and pick it up from the floor.
These three items have left me being the last one standing many times.
They won't fail me now. I have no idea what I'll do without a mask, but the girl was right, the people he's brought to me must have had masks.
They could be upstairs, and I can hold my breath until I find one.
I've been practicing holding my breath for years and the moment has finally come.
I hear movement at the door again and I step back into the darkness of my corner.
Hurried footsteps come down the stairs and I see a man.
A young man running down the steps. When he catches sight of the girl, his face turns to rage and fear.
He's focused completely on her and he doesn't notice me step out.
He kneels down beside her with his back to me and I strike, throwing one of the daggers and sinking it in the center of his shoulder blades.
He cries out, but I fling the whip and have it wrapped around his neck before his voice has a chance to gain momentum.
I don't know who or what is at the top of those stairs, but I know I don't want them to know I'm down here if they don't already.
I rush toward him, ready to grab my blade and put it in his throat, when he grabs the whip, pulling me toward him with a strength that I have yet to encounter.
I stumble forward and let go of the whip before I lose my footing completely.
Fear, like I haven't felt in years, courses through me, and my instincts say this is not a time to fight. It's time for flight.
Looking to the top of the steps at the open door, the fear of the unknown is almost as great as the fear of this man.
I hesitate briefly and look back toward the man who is scooping up the girl from the floor and once again ignoring me.
I sprint to the top of the stairs, hesitating again once I'm there.
Again, I look back to see the man at the bottom of the steps looking down at the limp body in his arms. I push the mangled door open further and the sight has me staggering backward into the open door.
It's a kitchen. No. It can't be. There's a body in the floor and I hear commotion in the room behind me.
There's no time to think. I run in the direction opposite of the clattering sounds.
This is a smaller room. There are two doors in here.
I open the first and find that it's a closet.
There are metal boxes and wires running everywhere, but no way out.
I turn to the other door, which looks heavier.
I suck in a huge breath of air and turn the knob pulling the door open quickly.
When I open the door, I can't believe what I'm seeing.
The breath escapes my mouth in a gasp. It's night, but that isn't shocking to me.
It has felt like night my whole life. I never could imagine the sunshine even though I've read about it so many times in so many different books.
I step out onto the stone steps and into the night air.
The air that feels clear and smells fresh.
The air that doesn't burn my eyes or sear my lungs.
I heave in a quivering breath as tears blur my vision.
A lie. It was all a lie. The girl was right. They all were. What have I done?
........................
The smell of bacon pulls me from a haze. "Bad dream?" I hear Adam's worried voice ask as I stretch and grin with my eyes still closed.
"Mmmm. What makes you ask that?"
He leans over and catches a tear that's rolling down my cheek with his finger. I look curiously at his finger and touch my face. It's wet. I've been crying.
"Hmmm. I don't know. Maybe. I never remember my dreams."
"Never? You never remember any of your dreams?" He seems troubled by this fact and I'm not sure why.
"Nope." I say, popping the p. "I used to think that I just never dream but I've woken V up a few times when I was apparently having a nightmare, so I know that I do dream. I just don't remember what they are."
Adam stares at me for a moment, but I can't be bothered with dream talk when there are biscuits, chocolate gravy, and bacon within licking distance. "That's for me, right?" I ask, hoping to put an end to the stare down.
Adam blinks twice and looks down at the tray in his hands. "Yeah. Yes, it's for you." He looks back up at me, looking more devilish than worried now. "I loved my housewarming gift and I'm afraid the one I got for you won't quite measure up so I figured breakfast in bed might sweeten the deal."
I pull the tray over to me, placing it across my lap. "Present, you say?"
He grins and looks at me. "Yes. A present."
I'm not great at receiving gifts. It's a moment when all of the attention is on me and that's obviously not my thing.
I'll take anything from this man though.
I just wish he hadn't spent more money. He bought this house.
I put zero dollars into it and had to fight literal battles to go halfsies on the furniture.
Seriously, we had wrestling matches at checkout counters and over my laptop to see who would pay for each piece of ridiculously expensive furniture.
It was a nightmare. He's obviously stronger, but I'm definitely more dirty.
Nothing was off limits for me in the pursuit of typing my credit card information into the checkout screen, including hair pulling and nutsack slapping. That one gets him every time .
"Thank you but I really wish you hadn't done that. You bought me a whole house. That was the present. I bought a lingerie set."
Adam falls back onto the bed, moaning "Please, Eve. Fuck. Don't take me back to the lingerie right now. I've got so much shit to do today, and we have a game tonight. I need to stay focused."
I laugh quietly at his obvious pain. I'm glad that he enjoyed it.
"I didn't spend money on it."
I'm not sure if he's even speaking to me when he says it, so I ask, "You didn't spend money on what?"
He doesn't reply and gets up from the bed.
He walks into the enormous walk-in closet that's bigger than my bedroom in our apartment and comes back out with a large wrapped square gift.
I'm not sure what it is, but it doesn't appear to be heavy.
I move the tray from my lap as he lays the gift on the bed in front of me.
He looks anxious as he looks down at the gift and I want to take the worry from him, so I start excitedly tearing at the paper.
It's face down. A large canvas. I turn it over and tears prick my eyes instantly.
It's me. A hyper realistic portrait in greyscale.
Remarkable. Does he even take art? This looks like a photograph.
His talent is stupefying. In the picture, I'm facing away from the creator and sitting naked with fabric bunched up around me, partially obscuring my butt but, not fully.
My tattoo is on full display and it's identical to my actual tattoo.
He had to have drawn this or at least been working on it before I got my tattoo, but the placement and design are perfect.
I suppose that's because the original design is his.
My face is turned to the side with my chin resting on my shoulder.
My hair is up in a messy tangle atop my head, just like I often wear it, but it somehow comes across as sexy rather than unkempt in the sketch.
My face is turned in the direction of my hand that's holding up a.
.. heart . In my hand is an anatomically correct human heart.
I appear to be looking at it with peaceful adoration as it sits in my open palm.
I reach out and touch the heart, running my fingers across the canvas.
"It was mine." He makes the declaration that I have already worked out for myself.
The heart is Adam's heart. Adam's heart in the palm of my hand.
"It's yours now. It's been you since the first time I set eyes on you.
It will be yours long after its last beat. "
Perfection. This moment and this drawing are absolute perfection.
The tears are flowing now. This incredible piece of art says so many things without speaking a word.
I stand and kiss him, doing my best to channel every bit of love, tenderness, and adoration that I feel for this man into this one kiss.
I need him to feel the things that I cannot express. The things that there are no words for.
.........................
Downstairs, the boys are sitting at the bar eating breakfast and Mulligan is perched on the floor between them, patiently awaiting his next bite of bacon.
Mulligan is the first to see us descend the wide staircase.
He comes up to me for a quick pet once he sees me before quickly returning to his bacon ready perch just in time for Cotton to not so slyly slip him a full slice.
"Good morning, Belle." Cal says, flashing me that mischievous grin that's ever present on his handsome face.
Anytime I look at the three of them together like this, I'm forced to wonder if Eden isn't only after elite athletes and the academically gifted.
I sense that they're also interested in uncommonly attractive people.
"Morning, Mason." Cotton's sleepy greeting comes through a yawn.
"Did you get any sleep?" There are dark circles under Cotton's eyes.
"Yeah. I slept great. You were right about that couch."
"Lord of Lies, Lie Hard, Lie Hard 2, Lie Hard With a Vengeance, Live Free or Lie Hard, A Good Day to Lie Hard, Lie Another Day, Never Say Lie."
I cut off Cal's rambling now that we have all thoroughly gotten the point. "Okay, so he didn't sleep well. Rambling received."
"Yeah. He was supposed to take the first shift, only he went ahead and stayed up all night." Cal is speaking to me while glaring at Cotton.
"You stayed up all night?! Wait, first shift for what?" I'm trying to catch up to everything that he has said when Adam steps in to change the subject.
"We have to be at the dome by five. I left my stuff at the house. Can you guys bring it with you tonight?"
I ignore his obvious diversion and continue with my line of questioning. "Why did you stay up all night on a game night, Cotton?"
Cotton rubs his face, remaining silent. "We agreed to take shifts staying up and watching for that guy to come back. Cotton decided to not wake me up for my shift, so he just stayed up until I forced him to lay down around 5:00 this morning."
"Cotton, you need to go lay down. You're going to be miserable tonight if you don't." I walk over to Cotton, pulling him from the bar stool and leading him down the hall to the only bedroom with a bed.
He remains silent, continuing to yawn all the way to bed and he's asleep before I make it back out of the room.
When I get back to the kitchen, Cal and Adam are speaking quietly, obviously attempting not to be overheard. "Why was it necessary for the two of you to take shifts?"
Both men look in my direction, trying too hard not to look surprised.
Cal clears his throat before speaking. "We just wanted to be sure that you don't have anything to worry about and you don't. All clear, all night."
"Look, I'm not sure what gave you guys the idea that I'm fragile but I'm not." Cal snort laughs and I glare at him.
He holds his hands up in front of his body in the universal 'easy killer' gesture.
"BELIEVE ME when I tell you that no one in the free world thinks you're fragile, Belle.
I don't want to call forward any taboo memories here but on your record, we have an attempted stabbing in defense of us, a left right elbow smackdown of a dastardly doctor, a brutal takedown of a would-be attacker, a serial shooting incident, and an impromptu beatdown in a cocktail dress.
You're a badass. We know it. Everyone knows it.
We're not keeping anything from you because, frankly, we don't want our asses kicked. "
I narrow my eyes at him and fly him the middle finger salute as I turn to walk away.
I stop when I see something out past the end of the pool.
It's small, but I know it doesn't belong there.
Changing course, I walk to the back doors and peer out.
When I open the door both men stand at attention. "Eve, what are you doing?"
I turn back to them, giving them both a look that I hope conveys, 'I don't need bodyguards, so calm the hell down'.
When I get closer to the item that clearly doesn't belong here, I see that it's a picture frame.
My picture frame. The one that went missing from my bedroom.
My blood turns to ice in my veins. Someone took this picture from my room, and that same someone was here last night outside our new home, watching us.
I can't stop my fingers from trembling as I bend down to pick up the frame. Turning it around, I receive another lightning bolt to the heart when I see that something is missing from the photograph. Me. I have been torn from the picture, leaving only Eli and Vaughn behind the glass.
There's a threat.....and I'm the target.