Page 41 of Run From Me

“She belongs to no one, especially you,” Xander was saying.

I was in a daze as I walked away from the mess.

Ripple was trying to say something, but I couldn’t hear him and I didn’t care. I didn’t care until the door squeaked open again.

“Ripple, man. We gotta go—” The Viper was silenced, but I didn’t see what had happened until I turned around. There was a knife sticking out of his neck.

“Thanks for the knife, Ripple,” Xander said. But that tone. His tone had even me shivering in fear.

Xander seemed to move just fine even with a hole that clearly needed stitches in his leg. What was he made of and why wasn’t I running for cover?

“Tell you what, Ripple my man. You go explain to the Vipers why the Spectors are going to come for them. You’re going to go and take a message about to why Sparky here is no longer their little informant.”

Ripple was actually trying to get up at this point. He was crab-walking for lack of a better description as he tried to get away from Xander, who was taking slow steps his direction.

“Do you understand, Viper?”

Ripple was nodding frantically. The florescent lights down here made him appear far paler than I’d ever seen. To be fair, this was also the quietest I’d ever heard him.

“Wonderful. You can go.”

Ripple slipped several times before he finally got traction and charged for the door as if Xander might change his mind. And maybe he would.

“Wait, take your guy?—”

Xander cut off his sentence because Ripple was already out the door and the body was still bleeding out on the floor.

“Fucking hell. Fine. Guess we need to go dig a grave, Sparky.”

I stood so close to Xander my arm brushed his.

“Did you know if you bury a body eighteen feet deep instead of the standard six, even a cadaver dog can’t find the remains?”

I was just talking while I watched the body. The guy’s eyes started to glaze over, but he wasn’t really dead. Not yet. Or maybe he was. I bent down and reached for his pulse. I jumped as he reached for me.

Xander grabbed me and pulled me up.

“You aren’t used to them not being dead, are you?”

That got him an eye roll and a middle finger.

“What part of ‘I work in a morgue’ made you think that, Captain Obvious?”

I hated how I watched his lips with sheer curiosity and desire. One minute I had nothing to lose, and the next I had a whole lot to look forward to if he’d let me. Even if it was just to use each other, I didn’t think I would mind.

His thumb traced my bottom lip.

“What are you thinking about, Calliope?”

His voice was low, a bedroom voice if I’d ever heard one. If I had had panties on, they would have been wet. Instead I just had my scrubs, and I wasn’t positive you couldn’t see the dampness.

“I…” I cleared my throat. “I was thinking: what do we do if he’s alive?”

I learned something in that moment. Xander could turn off that lifeless black that filled him for a moment and then he could snap it right back in place.

“I thought it was obvious, Sparky. We kill him.”

I swallowed.

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