Page 74 of Overcast

“Oh...yes, I did.” He straightens, and his lips curl into a smile.

Does he honestly think that when he flipped over the truck I was in that he became my knight in shining armor?

Maybe in his psychotic head, he does, but not in my world. He’ll never be anything but my tormentor.

The man who shoved water down my mouth and up my nose with a cloth over my head.

The one who stabbed me in the thigh.

The one who kissed me to keep me with him when I was done fighting for my life.

“I don’t want to stay with you,” I reply. “I’ll settle with your sister.”

He shakes his head as his fingers graze my stomach and the hem of my shirt while his eyes fall downward. “Can’t.”

“Why?” I can’t move. His touch is sending shock waves of static through my body, and, for the first time, I’m not entirely terrified of him.

Or it’s that I’m so exhausted and nauseated that it doesn’t register my emotions.

"I don't want Huck to get attached to you. He's five, and he's impressionable." He voices it as though it'd be the worst thing in the world. Like I'm some crazy lunatic in this house now. "And Reagan is...dealing with a lot."

I open my mouth to tell him I don’t care, but I’m already inconveniencing her by being here. But it’s not my fault.

It’s his.

My shirt inches higher, and Emric’s eyes search my face to see if I‘m going to crank out for someone to help me.

I would if he didn't just tell me what he did.

A small child is sleeping in this house.

“We need to get another bandage on this and clean it.” His fingertips don’t stop grazing around where he treated my gunshot wound, and it sends goosebumps trailing down my spine and arms.

“I can do it,” I mutter, hating the sight of blood but despising his touch even more.

“You don’t like blood,” he responds as though he can read my mind. “You freak out every time you see it.”

I want to ask him how he knows that, but he probably studies me more than I noticed.

“Stormi, I—” An ear-piercing scream sounds outside my bedroom, and Emric is already sprinting for the door.

It echoes in my ears as he disappears through the opening, leaving me trembling in fear of what’s going on.

And if more demons are out to get, not only me but all of us.

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