Page 73 of Run From Me

“You will be,” I said and smirked.

TWENTY-TWO

calliope

“What is that supposed to mean?”

I was tired, sort of. This was a whole different world than I’d expected to find. I was watching as Cas held up his hand to a pad. We followed him in and Zeid pulled the door shut as an alarm started to sound.

He walked over to another pad on the wall and typed in a code. He then proceeded to punch in another code that had a lot, and I mean a lot, of cameras flashing up on TVs in the corner.

“What is all that?”

Xander wasn’t slowing down. He was climbing the stairs two at a time and squirming didn’t do me any good except making the rubber band of a dress ride up.

“Security.”

I tried to glance over his shoulder.

“All those cameras are here?”

Xander held me tighter, like I was about to jump ship or something.

“Some. Some are at the industrial park. More all over the city, our territories.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Realizing the scope of their reach wasn’t even making any sense. I tried to not know muchabout the Vipers. The less I knew, the less chance I would be more valuable or more of a liability. It was delusional, but I had told myself these lies. I needed to be in control of something.

“Okay.” My voice was anything but confident. “We can revisit that later. Where are you taking me? Where are we?”

He stopped in front of a door with another biometric pad. This time he shifted me. His hand gripped my ass as he held me in one arm instead of putting me down while he accessed the pad.

The door didn’t make much of a sound opening, but it made a thud as the heavy thing closed.

“Is this the Xander Cave?”

Xander wasn’t talking. Not even a little twitch of a muscle to know he’d heard me. I couldn’t read his face. Something told me that I was right though. No one put this much effort into some kind of crash pad.

“Look. I don’t want to ruin your bachelor vibe. I’m sure you could take me home. No one will mess with me if you drop me off. I promise not to answer the door.”

He was still quiet. He was quietanddidn’t have the scary look of a psychopath.

“You aren’t going back there.”

I pressed my lips together and glared.

“Is that a command, my lord?” I was holding in the little threads of joy. I wasn’t dumb enough to put much hope into the picture, but he wanted me here?

The corner of my lip quirked just a bit.

“Not a command, but I am bigger than you, so I’d like to see you defy me.” His point was well made with me in his arms like I weighed nothing.

A moment later I was falling as he dropped me on the bed.

“Show me this fucking dress they made you wear. How many others saw you in this?”

Shifting, I propped myself on my elbows, my chest thrust a little higher.

“If you wanna see, you’re going have to take back this much comfier shirt. And to answer your question, it was, like, two or three or whatever. How many were at the fight?”

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