Page 131 of Possess Me! (I Want You To)

They’d found us.

I leapt down the last of the steps, my heart racing, adrenaline burning like fire in my veins as I sprinted down the hallway and burst into the kitchen.

“Prudence!” My voice was hollow and low enough I hardly recognized it. I searched the room frantically—cupboards, counter, cookie jar—there he was. Sitting at the table, forking cake into his mouth, like our entire plan—our entire mission—wasn’t about to explode in our faces. “We gotta go.” I was breathless and desperate as I latched on to his arm, dragging him bodily toward the garage and the van parked inside. “C’mon—”

He dragged his feet, suddenly weighing a thousand pounds as he pulled away from me, brow furrowed.

“Luca.”

“No!” I grabbed him again, ignoring the alarmed looks my siblings and step-dad were exchanging. “No.” I pulled, hard. “We have to go.“ I couldn’t think. I couldn’t see. Everything was ruined—all of it. I couldn’t let him down like this. I couldn’t do it. Not after what we’d been through. A deal was a deal.

It wasn’t about the money.

It had never been about the fucking money.

Jesus, I’d barely even thought about it since we’d started this.

It had always been him, him, him.

I couldn’t leave him trapped here.

I couldn’t.

“Luca—” He tried again, but I wouldn’t hear it. The ringing in my ears was too loud. I managed to yank the kitchen door open, and pull him down the cold cement steps into the garage. He was letting me drag him, I recognized that. We stopped a few feet from my mom’s car, the chill bleeding into my bare feet.

Alarmed voices rang behind us—more than there should be. Which only meant...

“The keys—” I needed the keys.

I needed—

“Baby.” Prudence grabbed my face in his frigid, dominant hands, squeezing till I was forced to look at him. Electric blue. Dark lashes. Smudged shadows. Familiar. I gasped, my whole body burning with anxiety as his familiar, steady gaze met mine. “Stop it.”

“You don’t—” He didn’t understand. He didn’t know—why wouldn’t the words come out? Why couldn’t I—

“Is he okay?” Violet’s voice called from the open doorway.

“Pru—” I couldn’t stop shaking, trying to get him to release me so we could get in the car—so we could—right. Keys.

Keys, keys, keys—

“Sweetheart.” Prudence’s cold fingers swept over my cheekbones and distantly I recognized startled voices from the open doorway behind him.

“Did Prudence just call the tall pink dude, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, I think he did.” The voices sounded awed, but I didn’t even have half a brain cell to spare for our unlucky audience as I tried to get Prudence to understand what was happening. If I slowed down—maybe I could get my words to work. I took a fortifying breath.

“Your sisters are here—”

“I know.”

“Your sisters are—” Wait. Wait-wait-wait. “What?”

“I know.” Prudence’s fingers continued to gently stroke my cheeks as his hypnotic gaze kept me captured. I was a moth, trapped willingly in his web. “I know, Pinkie.”

“Pinkie!” came a muffled cackle.

I tried to shake my head, to clear it of the panic that was still making my blood sing.

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