Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 51832 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51832 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“And that will do it? That will be enough? Because it doesn’t feel like it will be.”
No, I think. It doesn’t but we’re going to make it enough. “We’ll make it enough,” I promise her, stroking her cheek.
We just look at each other, as if we both know, I’m speaking the impossible, but we both refuse to accept failure. She steps into me and I cup her face. “What if we can’t?” she asks again.
“We’ll make it enough,” I vow, and then I kiss her because a kiss is so much simpler than words.
And maybe that’s the answer I’m looking for. Keep it simple. Get us out of this mess and then fly her someplace exotic where we can stay naked for days on end. If we’re naked, we can’t fight. If she’s moaning, she can’t cry. If she’s crying out my name, she can’t call me other nastier names.
We’ll fuck away the past.
I’ve almost convinced myself it really is that simple when there’s a knock on the door and it’s already opening. The past isn’t done with us yet. Maybe it never will be.
Chapter Nine
Ana
With the door to the bedroom opening, Luke reaches for his weapon, clearly, in the same mindset I’m in, which is to expect a monster not a man. Kurt would be that monster. For just a moment, terror rips through me at the idea that Kurt has killed Adam and Savage while we got dirty in the bathroom.
Turns out there is no monster. It’s only Adam.
Luke grunts and his hand slides away from his weapon, the steel arch of his back softening, if only a pinch, while my shoulders slump forward in relief.
Adam steps into the doorway, stone-faced, and tense, but clearly not as tense as me after I started seeing the walking dead, and found a monster in the man I once called my stepfather. I was also ready to call me and Luke insanely irresponsible for assuming safety that might not exist. We really don’t know what is going on around us. Then again, we don’t know how long we’ll be alive at this point either, and sometimes you have to live in the moment.
“What the hell is going on?” he asks and he’s looking at me as if I hold the knowledge to a universe where dead men start walking. If only I held that kind of golden information, none of us would still be in this house.
“I thought he was dead,” I confirm, reading his complete exasperation as his assumption this surprise was not a surprise to me, but perhaps, only a betrayal. As if any betrayal is only a betrayal. It was both.
“She thought he was dead,” Luke chimes in, offering me back up.
“I get that,” Adam replies. “What I don’t get is what the hell is going on?” He eyes Luke. “The rope was kinked. He wasn’t tied up until after you left the room.”
Obviously, that’s code for—he wasn’t tied up when you hit him—his way of saying that without saying it to protect Luke’s reputation with me, which doesn’t need protecting.
I meant it when I told Luke I wanted to hit Kurt. I wanted to shake him. I wanted him to just be a good man, who did the right things, but it’s hard to believe he can be that person after a gun to my head and a pile of lies that now define my life. And my breakup with Luke.
Luke’s eyes narrow with this information, his fingers flexing and curling on his dominant right hand. “He chose not to fight me.”
“Don’t go thinking that’s an honor thing, Luke,” I warn. “You know Kurt. This is a combat situation to him, and for all practical purposes, he’s the hostile. And we both know he does nothing without an agenda.” I glance at Adam. “Did you ask him why he didn’t fight back?”
“I did,” Adam confirms. “And he said it was to test Luke.” His gaze flicks to Luke with that tidbit of information, as if he’s watching him for impact. “He said you’re a man of control. He made you hit him to prove a point. He wanted to know if you still cared about her enough to lose that control.”
Luke gives a dry, humorless laugh. “He made me. Priceless. That’s how he wants to play that hand?”
My lips press together and there’s a splinter of ice down my spine. “He wanted to know if I was still your weakness. And I am. In other words, he wanted to know how to control Luke, and controlling Luke might as well be controlling all of us. Now we have to decide why he needed that information and how he intends to use it against us.” I start walking toward the door.
Luke catches my arm and turns me to face him. “What are you doing?”