Page 33 of Keep Me

Roan

I hold open the sidewalk cellar hatch. Reggie goes first, then I follow into the basement of Dino’s Meats and Deli. Shelves of dried food stuffs line one wall, and a pile of empty produce boxes are gathering in a corner. A door with a keypad leads to a stairwell up to the main floor. I tap in a code and, instead of the door unlocking, the air vent above us opens and a ladder slides down the wall from the hidden attic.

“Ladies first.” I sweep my hand out, and she starts climbing without asking a hundred questions—for the first time ever. In fact, as I grip onto the rungs after her, I realize she’s been uncharacteristically quiet since she got a text during the car ride over. It puts my senses on high alert.

The converted attic at the top of the ladder is nothing fancy, but in terms of safe houses, it’s better than most. There’s a dresser in the back corner, a queen-sized bed along one wall, and a simple kitchenette against the other. The only thing that makes it different from any other studio is the bathroom, which is kind of hard to miss—

“Why are the bathroom walls made of glass?” Reggie stares dumbfounded. Every part of the bathroom, except for the toilet behind a stall door, is visible. Including the shower that takes up one corner.

“It’s a safe house. I have to be able to have eyes on you at all times,” I say simply.

“Whatever.” She throws her bag on the bed and sits on the edge, looking at her phone.

I notice she’s picking her nails, which means that something is bothering her. “Who texted you?”

“No one,” she says quickly and defensively, tossing her phone onto the mattress like it’s unimportant. I lunge for it, and she scrambles to grab it but she’s too slow. “Hey!”

I hold the phone above my head and she jumps trying to take it, tugging on my arm and cursing me in Spanish. “How do you know my password?” she protests as I unlock the phone and pull up her messages.

I break my attention from the phone to smirk down at her. “I know everything about you, little menace.” Then I read aloud a text from an unknown number, “I know what really happened to Sofia. Pier 17. Come alone.” I give her back the phone, and she huffs defiantly, crossing her arms. “You weren’t seriously considering going, were you?”

“Well, you weren’t exactly invited,” she shoots back.

“Jesus, Cortez. Don’t you see how stupid that is?” I brush my hands over my hair and pace. “We’re staying at a fucking safe house for a reason—”

“But it’s Sofia. What if—”

“I know what she means to you, but so do they, and they’re trying to use her against you.” I lower my voice, recognizing the anguish and self-hatred in her face, the temptation to do something stupid if it means getting a little relief from the pain.

She pushes the heels of her palms into her eyes and groans. “I know, it’s just…” She shakes her head and roughly runs her fingers through her hair.

I don’t want to say it, but I see how easily her desire for answers could cloud her judgment. I raise my chin and keep my voice level and firm. “Try to run, and I won’t hesitate to do what is necessary to keep you safe.”

“What does that mean?” She eyes me bitterly, and I hate it. I finally felt like I was something other than the bad guy with her, and now she’s looking at me again like she did in the beginning.

I sniff, shoving down those feelings of hurt and inadequacy so she sees nothing but a stone wall. “Push me and find out.”

She scoffs, then mutters under her breath, “Just when I was beginning to think you actually had a heart.”

Her words are a dagger to the chest that I let sink in deep. I let the sting remind me that at the end of the day, she’s a job and my feelings have nothing to do with it.

She takes the bed, I take the desk, and we simmer in hostile silence. After an hour, her shoes are kicked off and she hasn’t looked up from her book in twenty minutes, so I think it’s safe to assume she isn’t going anywhere. I take a much-needed bathroom break.

It’s not even ten seconds later that I hear the mechanical hum of the air vent and ladder being lowered. “Damn it,” I hiss, feeling like a fool caught with my pants down—literally.

Fuck. I rush to finish, grabbing a pair of handcuffs from the desk before I practically jump down to the basement, skipping the last twelve rungs. My cheeks burn, pissed at myself and annoyed at her. I see her feet disappear onto the street at the top of the steps. If there’s a car waiting for her, I’m screwed. I push my legs harder, taking the steps two at a time. “Cortez!”

Her head whips around and I see her whisper shit when our eyes lock. She’s too busy looking back at me to see the giant refrigerator truck speeding down the street as she’s about to step right into it. “Stop!” I yell, sprinting faster than I ever have to pull her back right as the truck whizzes past.

It drives through a puddle of black water left in the gutters after street washing, sending a wave splashing down on us. Reggie, clutched in front of me, blocks most of it from hitting me, but she is drenched.

“Ew!” she screams, twisting wildly in my grip, but I don’t let her go until I’ve wrenched both hands behind her back and handcuffed them. “Are you fucking handcuffing me?” she howls, and I’m grateful that there’s no one on the street.

She’s dripping with dirty, brown water like she just crawled out of the gutter and tries to huff a wet, nasty strand of hair out of her face. “I told you this would happen,” I growl, and she meets me with a fiery scowl.

I see the moment she decides to make a run for it in her eyes seconds before she bolts. She darts to the right down the sidewalk, and I catch her mere seconds later.

Grabbing her around the waist, I throw her over my shoulder, and she kicks and wails on my back. “You’re not allowed to touch me!”

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