Page 42 of Callum

“Put me down!”

“Shhhhh,” he scolds, spinning us toward the front of the house. “You’re the one they’re trying to kill, remember?”

“I hate you,” I seethe, bouncing against his shoulder as he jogs along the side of the house.

“I know.”

Callum carries me through the front door of the safe house, and I get my first look at the main part of the house as he moves through the space. The entryway and bedroom are on the left side, with the right side being dominated by a beige living room, a U-shaped kitchen, and a tiny bathroom in the back corner.

I don’t get to look at anything for long since Callum walks us directly to the bedroom. As soon as the door closes, he tosses me from his shoulder straight into the middle of the bed. Before I can even form the words to ask what his fucking problem is, he’s crawling onto the bed with me.

He’s crawling over me.

My heart skids to a halt at the sight of him prowling up my body, the muscles flexing in his shoulders and arms with each careful movement. I hardly breathe when his hand slides along my neck, cresting over my shoulder and down the outside of my arm.

When he laces our fingers together, I feel every part of me melt against the mattress. I’ve missed this. I’ve missed him. I’ve missed—“You asshole!”

I feel something close around my wrist at the same time that I hear the sound of metal snapping against the iron headboard. He handcuffed me to the fucking bed!

“It was this or another round of sedation,” he counters, rolling off my hips to flop onto the mattress beside me. “I thought you would like this more.”

Annoyingly, I do like this more, but not in this way. “Uncuff me, Callum.”

“No.”

“I can get out of these.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” he snorts a laugh, adjusting himself on the bed next to me. It looks like he’s settling in to have a long conversation, and I feel my heart rate climbing.

“I’m going to kill you.”

“I’m looking forward to that, too. But first,” he smirks, stretching out his shoulders and neck. When he stops moving, it’s as if time itself slows around us. “You’re going to tell me about the baby.”

Eleven: Over and Over

ROSALIND

“There is no baby,” my fingers itch for a knife, but I settle for glaring at him across the bed.

An answering sigh comes from somewhere deep within his chest. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Red. I know you had a baby. I just want to know where they are.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” It doesn’t need to be a knife. I could stab him with a fork.

“Of course I don’t.” He’s angrier than I expected him to be, and I want nothing more than to respond in kind. Callum doesn’t deserve to be mad about this. I do. I’m the one who had to live through it. “Just tell me what you did. Did you give them up?”

A spoon. I could stab him with a rusty spoon. Right in his perfect blue eyes.

“Fuck you,” the handcuffs rattle against the metal headboard as I adjust my position on the bed, and I have to force myself to breathe. I’m fine. “For your information, I did not give her away.”

“Did someone take her from you?”

“God, if you believe in that sort of thing.” At the look of complete confusion on his face, I add, “Our daughter was stillborn.”

Callum’s shock is palpable. He stares at me for a long time without blinking, then raises one hand into the air between us as if some part of him wants to comfort me.

The kindness of that gesture makes me want to slit his throat.

“Glad we had this talk,” I slap his hand out of the air, ignoring the look on his face. Wiggling around on the bed, I do my best to get into a comfortable position with my hand still chained to the headboard. “Go to sleep.”

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