Page 47 of White Rabbit

With Elijah, I feel alive.

It isn’t enough just to paint; I want to use my fingers to push the pigment into the canvas, pliable, soft, wet, raw. I want to feel it dry on my skin, cracking and flaking as it scatters like confetti. Eli changes everything. He makes me taste the colors. Feel every fiber of the canvas.

“I’m so sorry I never saw it; I didn’t realize until it started unraveling. When I thought Chad was cheating on you, and he said you were painting again and Tiff was mad at you…being a jealous bitch. It clicked into place just how unhappy you were.” Orla’s sobs as she rocks next to me.

Her words had sobered me up, but clearly the same can’t be said for her as she cries. The guilt was clearly eating at her, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond.

Her voice cracks. “I’m sorry. I am so so sorry.”

“I need to go home. I need time to think.” Booking a taxi on my phone, I push to my feet. Coming here, I’d hope to be vindicated in my hurt. Supported. Instead, I was a little numb to it all. As I move away from the table, I pause. Something still didn’t add up. “If he’d cheated on me that night, why did he suddenly vanish now?”

Orla sniffs loudly, wiping at her mascara-stained cheeks. “Tiff seems to think someone made him.”

“Who would…oh.”

There was one man I knew who had the power to make someone vanish.

Chapter Twenty-Three

ELIJAH

After the art lesson, I linger.

“Officer Bishop, I have a question about this book on Cezanne you showed us.” I say loudly, giving everyone in earshot my excuse for staying behind.

No one bats an eyelid, all knowing that I’d rip their tongues out if they dared to breathe a word about my woman. Officer Foxx looks mildly annoyed as he shepherds the other inmates out into the corridor, the muscle in his jaw ticking. Everyone else filters out and I lock the door.

Tough shit Foxx-face. I saw her first.

“Oh, okay inmate. If you bring it over here,” she replies absentmindedly, beckoning me over to her desk.

All afternoon she’s been elsewhere mentally, lost inside her head. Something has happened. It’s written all over her face, her body betraying her.

Bent over her desk, she’s flipping through paperwork when I come up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist. How did she make the ugly prison shirt and skirt combo look hot? I can’t take my eyes off her, even with her bulky duty belt around her waist.

Kissing the back of her neck, I ask, “What’s going on Rabbit?”

“Just things…”

Snorting, I sink my teeth into her skin. She’s still wearing my marks, but they’re fading and I hate it.

Her father was a crooked judge, and she said herself she hates her brother. What was really consuming her? Diverting her attention away from me?

I pause, a strange sort of panic filling my chest. Would she choose them over me? No. She was mine, and I was hers. This was it.

She moans quietly as I suck another love bite onto her skin, almost like I’m writing my name on her.

When I stop, she puts some space between us, turning to glare at me. “I am not a chew toy.”

“I disagree,” I say with an easy shrug.

“Just because you disagree doesn’t make it true!” She sounds exasperated, and I don’t know why.

Tilting my head, I lean against the edge of her desk and fold my arms. When it becomes clear she won’t say anything voluntarily, I decide to bite the bullet and ask. “What’s got you all riled up, Rabbit?”

Rubbing her temples, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When her hazel gaze locks with mine, I know I’m in trouble. There’s anger amongst the flecks of green and gray, and it’s directed right at me.

“Did you threaten Chad?”

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