I reclined in my chair, wishing I had a napkin for my greasy fingers. I embraced the side of the girl still hidden to me. The girl called Buttercup. The girl who would’ve laughed and joked with men similar to these all those years ago. “Well… what do you want to know?”
The men slapped their hands on the table. Their low timbre laughs reverberating around the table. “Oh, shouldn’t have said that, girl.”
“Tell us the kinky dirt.”
“Tell us something that’ll make you blush.”
My back tensed but I smiled at the rough gruff men, not afraid of them as I’d been raised by a brethren similar in some other time and place. I was as much a part of this world as any other—more so in fact: the smell of gasoline and thunder of a motorcycle was the lullaby of my past.
Fear skittered quickly.
So why, if you came from this world, do you fear it so much?
My fingers ached to grab my hair and shake. The questions were piling up and I had no answers to tame them.
Calmly Lighter Boy stood up, wiped his mouth, swigged the rest of his beer, and made his way around the table to leave. His brothers didn’t look up, transfixed on waiting for any gossip from me. But I couldn’t look anywhere else.
Opening the door he looked back, brown eyes locking with mine. His lips spread over his teeth, sending a shiver over my scalp. His eyes shouted that he wasn’t finished with me. Whatever he’d stolen me for had yet to come to pass.
Waggling his fingers condescendingly, he left the room, closing the door behind him.
My heart charged around my chest.
You need to remember. And fast.
My time had screeched to an end. I’d been sold. I would soon leave and never get a second chance. I had to fight.
Mo nudged my ankle under the table. “Tell us. It’s cruel to make a man wait.”
“Yeah, it’s called blue balls,” the prospect joked.
Masculine laughter rippled around the room.
Taking a deep breath, I asked, “You want details…”
“Hell yeah!”
Grasshopper grinned. “One tiny juicy detail. Come on, give it up.”
My mind raced with everything Kill had done—the way he’d made me feel, the vulnerability and brokenness he kept hidden below surly curtness. “Okay, one detail. When he took me shopping, he pushed me against the changing room wall and kissed me so hard his teeth punctured my bottom lip.”
My tummy fluttered recalling the passion, the confusion, and most of all the need.
The laughter died; men looked at each other with strange expressions on their faces.
Mo finally muttered, “As fucking if. Tell the story but don’t lie about it.”
Grasshopper threw me a look, stuffing his face full of pizza. I couldn’t read the message in his eyes.
A lie because he kissed me? Was that so hard to believe?
Yes, if what Grasshopper said is right. Bound, blindfolded, no touching—the only way Kill would sleep with a woman.
I lost the spark to interact with them, letting my soul sink down and down into the forgetful darkness inside. It wasn’t their business what their president did with me. Especially seeing as my answers unsettled them. And I wanted to hoard those precious memories—they were my only illumination in the dark.
“Try again, pumpkin. Something believable this time,” the guy with the belly said, swiping his mouth free of pizza crumbs.
Balling my hands under the table, I said, “What happened at Kill’s place—”
“Is none of your goddamn business.” That voice. Smooth but gravelly. Deep and powerful. An earthquake invoker—his words aftershocking around the room with force.
Awareness electrified the fine hairs on the back of my neck. Every inch of my body hummed.
The room went quiet. Achingly quiet.
I spun in my chair. My heart erupted into sparks and comets.
Kill’s face was closed off and angry, his hands fisted by his sides. His eyes were bloodshot and fresh bruising marked his face. Gone was the collected angry president, replaced with an exposed man searching for violence. “I trust you to do one thing and this is what I fucking come back to?”
Everything about him seethed with rage, his hair was tussled, and the scent of winds, salt, and leather threaded with the sharpness of alcohol.
Where had he been? He’s been fighting.
Kill never looked at me. Instead, he directed his anger at Grasshopper. “I see you’re disobeying me again and feeding the damn girl?”
My back bristled. I wanted to yell at him to talk to me, but my lips stayed firmly glued.
Grasshopper stood, wiping his hands on his faded jeans. “Hey, Prez. My bad. She’s been cooped up in that room for a couple of days—felt it important to give her some fresh air, you know?”
Mo’s eyes bored into the back of my head, but I never took my attention off Kill. I drank him in from his bloody knuckles to the grass stain on his jeans. My mind raced with all sorts of fabrications of what he’d been doing the last two days.
I’d missed him.
I wanted to tend to his new injuries just like I’d done the first night I’d arrived. I wanted to heal him—fix whatever drove him to such destructive behavior.
Maybe he wasn’t fighting? Maybe it was self-defense?
My mind skipped into all new horrors thinking of him being hurt maliciously by others.
Unconsciously, I leaned forward, drawn to him as surely as a tide to the moon. “You’re hurt.”
His nostrils flared and the cognizant awareness between us sprang up as if we’d never touched or kissed or fucked. It was thick and rampant and bogged down with issues—but there. And strong. So damn strong.
My skin prickled with heat and my core melted beneath his scrutiny.
“Why the fuck did you call me, Hopper? You knew the plan. You knew why I wanted it this way.” Kill ran a hand through his tangled hair, still refusing to look at me.
“Got something to check. To make sure once and for all—before your chance is gone—that what you believe is true.”
“Fuck you, man. I told you.” Kill stepped forward, the room glittering with violence. The other men stood up, the soft scrape of chairs and rush of mixed breathing setting everyone on edge.
“You can curse at me all your want, Kill, but hear her out. Last time. I fucking swear it. And then she’s leaving. Gone.”
Kill blanched at the term “gone.” His knuckles whitened, clenching harder.
In the sudden cease-fire, Grasshopper pulled me from my chair. I stumbled upright, moving to stand before Kill. Grasshopper didn’t remove his hold, his fingers burning around my elbow.
His body locked in place, preparing himself. “She remembered her name.”
The wave of emotion from Kill almost drowned me. So much in one buffet of feeling—I’d never decipher it all.
Kill’s eyes fell to where Grasshopper touched me. Dark possession flashed across his face. My stomach fluttered with butterflies.
I want you to touch me.
I want you to remember me.
Then Kill crossed his arms, shutting me out, just like the damn wall living in my brain. “You brought me back for more lies?” His ire fell on me, his green eyes blazing like an emerald fire. “This will be fucking interesting.”
I swallowed. A whiff of alcohol once again crept over my senses. Was he drunk? Hungover?
“You’re so blind.”
His lips twisted into a sneer. “I’m blind because I won’t fall for a scam?”
“No. You’re blinded by grief and stubbornness.”
Kill flinched, shifting closer so his body heat tangled with mine. “You know nothing of stubbornness.”
God, he annoyed me. Without persistence I wouldn’t be standing here right now. I would’ve already been sold because I wouldn’t have offered to heal him and found a way into his life.
Words and anger frothed in my mouth, I wanted so much to let loose.
But the stiff way Kill held himself, the hunch of his shoulders and knotted muscles in his neck were signs of a man struggling—a man in bone-deep pain. I couldn’t kick him when he already curled around what was left of his tattered heart. To love a ghost so strongly that the man literally killed himself with heartbreak ought to be romantic.
It wasn’t.
It was just endlessly, terminally sad.
And nonsensical.
Especially because as I believed I had the power to relieve his suffering.
Grasshopper shoved me forward. “You wanted to see him. I got him here for you. Best tell him your name, girl, so we can all move on.”
Dread thickened my blood. Why did that sound so ominous? Shouldn’t he be happy that everything I’d said was real? Kill no longer had to live with the guilt of thinking he’d murdered me. He could be happy!
“Tell him,” Grasshopper prompted.
I couldn’t stop looking at Kill. His green eyes were icy and full of mistrust. “Well? I’m here against my fucking wishes. Tell me, so I can leave and put this nightmare behind me.”
Nightmares. Dreams. I’d found him in my dreams and awoken to him in my nightmares. Would there be a place for us in real life?
Stop stalling and tell him.
Balling my hands, I said, “I remember you from my past. I remember the fire and barbeques and Libra erasers. I remember homework and TV and stolen kisses. I remember you, Arthur Killian—I remember you when you were younger and not broken. My name is Sarah and I’m yours.” My voice broke but I battled through the sickness of laying my heart at his feet. “I remember you and I need you to stop pretending before it’s too late.”