Page 64 of Meet Me In The Dark

Micah pushed his forehead against hers. “We will,” he murmured.

Luke took her mouth with his, kissing her passionately, desperately, so desperately that she got lost in him for a moment and forgot where they were. “Sweetheart, I?—”

“I know,” she murmured. “I know.”

Finally, she reached Conor, who drew her down with one arm, and she lay on the side of his chest that wasn’t damaged. He was healing.

“We just need to survive,” she said again.

She repeated those five words to herself every day, almost hummed them to herself when she stood under the cold water and closed her eyes, and imagined a time away from this, a time when they were happy—and Christopher Johnathan was buried six feet under.

They just needed to survive.

On the tenth day, Kara came back from the shower, her eyes full of fear.

Conor sat up immediately. The wound was healing—incredibly quickly, in fact—and besides, he didn’t give a shit about his wound, he cared about the look in Kara’s eyes.

“Kara,” he said urgently. “Talk to me.”

“No one touched me,” she said immediately, and Conor believed her. “But they were talking, about how it wasn’t much longer until I have to watch the three of you die.” She looked at Micah. “If you have a plan, now’s the time.”

If Micah had a plan, he would’ve shared it by now. Conor searched for hope, but he found none.

Micah sighed. “Not yet. I need Christopher here to fuck with his head; his avoiding us doesn’t help me. There’s no escaping here without us all getting shot, but if we wait, we’re still all getting shot. And for all I know, they’re listening to us now, so any planning is useless. All I can ask for is patience, because the right moment will come—and then we all need to move, together.” He stared at the camera when he said the last, a clear dare to whomever was watching.

“Like we used to,” Luke said.

“Like we used to,” Micah agreed. “Except now we have a secret weapon.”

A sliver of a smile appeared on Kara’s face. “I like being the secret weapon,” she joked.

Conor didn’t. Conor didn’t want her tohaveto be the weapon, he wanted her protected in bubble wrap but also free to do whatever she wanted. To fly away, if need be.

What had they done to her? What hadhedone to her?

Kara carried out her new ritual: circling the room to kiss all of them, before choosing one of them to lie down with. She alternated, but today was Conor’s, and since he was a greedy bastard, he wasn’t going to complain.

She sat down and he drew her into him with his free hand, his nose in her wet hair. She no longer smelled like bee balm, and he missed the smell.

“Conor,” she murmured, “will you do me a favor?”

“Anything, perfect girl,” he said.

“Will you sing to me?”

Conor cleared his throat. It had been years since he’d sung anything.

“I’m shocked you even remember,” he said.

“I remember everything about those nights,” she said. “Leonard Cohen, remember?”

He remembered. That second night together in the hotel on the beach. He began to hum the words to “Hallelujah,” the song he’d wanted to play for her, so long along ago. It felt like another life; it felt like yesterday.

I like your artsy soul. What do you play?

Guitar.

Dreams of being Led Zeppelin?

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