Page 16 of Bound by Adoration

“Fuck, didn’t think of that man. Sorry. You mean you have pain in your joints all the time—minus the head?” I asked, curious, never meeting a man as tall as Screech before.

“Yeah. Well, all over actually; joints, muscles, bones. Pretty much my entire body. The fun part of being abnormally giant.”

“Damn. Doctors able to help at all?” I asked as we hit another bump, and he hit his head again. Fuck, I needed to be more careful.

"Fuck no. Stopped going to them years ago. Weed and pain relievers mostly help,” he said on a groan.

Considering that shit was still illegal in Georgia, I kept my mouth shut and moved to a new topic. Not that I cared what he did, just didn’t want whatever that was to come back on Nyx. “When’d you meet Nyx?” I asked something that was on my mind.

“Online. But that’s all I’m sayin’ because it’s her story to tell.”

Had to admit, I liked that Nyx had someone loyal to her when I couldn’t be there. How deep that ran was to be determined, but Nyx didn’t trust easily, and she trusted this guy. Had to give him a little bit of rope. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t look into him and hang him with it.

I researched everyone associated with Nyx that I knew of. Raid, though, I wouldn’t need to search. I knew him better than I wanted to.

My head shook. Fuck. Everything always went back to him, and I fucking hated it. And now he was with Nyx.

Screech, though, yes, I’d be running some checks as soon as I could.

“Understandable.”

“How about you? How do you know her?” I was a little shocked that Nyx hadn’t told him anything about me. But why would she? We’d made a deal that neither of us existed. At least, until I showed up at her door. Therefore, I was her secret that was now out of the bag.

“From Atlanta, but the rest is up to her to tell,” I responded just as he did.

“Understood.”

Quiet hit the cab of the truck. Then Screech asked, “You think the big guy up there is gonna let me go back to my place to get my shit?”

“Good luck on that one. Grouchy fuck likes to be in control of everything around him. Depends on his mood. And doubt he’ll let you go alone then come back."

“Don’t you have family shit to deal with?” he asked. “He gonna let you do that?”

I laughed. “My days of allowing him to control me and ‘let’ me do things are over.”

“That sounds interesting,” he said with a smirk to his lip. “Guess I’ll be around to see how it plays out.”

My head shook. “Nothin’ left to play out.”

“Sure,” he said low, and he probably didn’t think I heard him. But I did. I also didn’t say anything. Fuck if I knew what the next few days were going to bring. “Just give Nyx and me a heads-up so we get out of the line of fire.”

“Not sure that’s a great analogy. You know a lot about the Hamiltons?”

His head turned to me. “More than I want to know. When they’re six feet under, I’ll sleep better at night.”

“Me too.”

“Nyx is pissed I told you and the grouchy big man about them, but she needs protection.”

A smile tipped my lips at his use of the word grouchy.

“You’d be surprised how much she can take care of herself. But yeah. I agree.” Why she was there, though, that this was the place she came for comfort when all it gave me was agony sucked.

Considering I hated this town and everything it stood for. Nothing good came out of Sumner, Georgia. Or, at least, I had thought that. Now that Nyx was here, that feeling was conflicted inside of me.

Fuck.

We moved outside Sumner, following Nyx and Raid. The longer we traveled, the more my curiosity grew. Where the hell was this safe house? I knew Sumner and the surrounding area, but this didn’t look familiar. It even had rolling hills which was also surprising.

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