Page 61 of Obsession

He has to stop at some point, I reason. He has to… stop walking and…halt.

But he doesn’t.

When he reaches me, he grabs me by the upper arms and shakes me, hard enough to make my teeth rattle, before he shoves me up against the wall with a growl I feel deep in my belly. Cold concrete hits my back as his fingers grasp my chin. I’ve never wanted to look away from someone so badly in my life, but his grip on my chin makes that impossible.

He says something to me, but my ears are ringing from the sound of the shot and the blood pounding in my head. I shake my head to signal to him that I can’t hear him.

He raises his voice so loudly, my stomach clenches.

“You think you can shoot a gun? With no training, no experience, nothing to keep you safe? Do you?” he snarls. A vein throbs in his temple, his nostrils flare. I cringe. What else am I supposed to do? I’m wilting under the heat of his glare, and I totally deserve this. Shooting a loaded gun isreallyfucking stupid. I wouldn’t blame him if he made me leave or fired me or made me go peel potatoes in the kitchen, or whatever it is a military guy does to someone who’s royally fucked up.

My voice shakes. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know it was loaded.”

My ears still ring. I want to cover them to still the aching reverberation.

His eyes are sharp as ice, blue rivulets of churning fury, as he holds my gaze.

“Who gave you the gun?”

“I—I don’t know his name. A guy with a shaved head? He was outside.”

“Claude.”

Still holding my gaze, he reaches for his cell phone and makes a call. I’m trembling, scared of what he’ll do next, scared to say a thing. He puts it on speakerphone.

“Yes, sir?”

His voice cuts like a scalpel. “Did I give you permission to give Miss Price a weapon?”

A pause, then,“No sir.”

“She did not have permission to touch a weapon, and I’ll punish her for that. But if you ever again give anyone a weapon withoutmy express consent, I will fire you. Consider this your one and only warning. Do you understand me?”

Punish?

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I’m so sorry.”

“Miss Price, I believe you have something to say as well.”

I’m shaking in his grip, and my voice sounds distant and muffled. “I’m sorry I asked you for a weapon. I’m sorry I got you in trouble.”

I’m sorry I got myself in trouble?

Why did I think it was okay to work with him again?

I’m shaking as he hangs up the phone and shoves it back into his pocket, which, unfortunately, brings his furious gaze back to focus fully onme.

Gah-reat.

I open my mouth to speak, but I don’t know what I’m going to say. I have to say… something. But when I go to speak, he shakes his head at me.

“No.”

I don’t know exactly what he’s saying “no” to, but I clamp my mouth shut. It’s convenient, since I don’t know what I would say anyway.

I look down at his hands on my wrists and realize he’s shackled me in his grip. With the cold concrete wall at my back, there isn’t a single move I know that could get me out of this position. He dwarfs me, my whole body shadowed by his.

When he speaks, his voice vibrates with anger.

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