Page 54 of Marked

In this bed.

Wallowing.

She’d wanted me to die.

And then she pretended it wasn’t so, that she hadn’t made that choice. She acted like she mourned Quinn because she hadn’t chosen her, but it was because she’d been tricked.

“Harley.” Zack pushes the bedroom door open. “You’re still in bed.”

I roll over to face him.

“I like this bed. I may never leave it,” I tell him and pull a pillow over my head.

A second later, it’s yanked away, and his steely gaze pins me. “I brought food. Come eat.”

“I don’t want to eat.” I try to grab the pillow back from him, but he tosses it across the room.

Why won’t he just let me melt into the bed? I’m unwanted.

“If things had happened the way you thought you remembered them, and Quinn had survived, what would you tell her?” he demands. There’s no softness here. He’s all authority now.

I see the Marine in him with his set jaw, his battle stance.

Are we at war with each other, or the world?

“I have no idea.” I lift my chin. “That Mom had to make a choice. But she didn’t, did she Zack?” Shoving my elbows into the mattress, I push myself up and swing my legs around. He moves back just in time as I jump off the massive bed.

“We don’t know the full story yet. And there’s a chance that this memory isn’t completely right, either. You’re just starting to get more of them back. We don’t know everything yet.”

“We know my mother’s not innocent. We know she’s been pretending to be a loving, supportive mother for the last ten years, when in fact she was regretting that the wrong daughter lived.” I stomp off to the attached bathroom and slam the door behind me.

He doesn’t deserve my anger, but she’s not here and I needit to go somewhere. I need the pain rolling through my chest, stealing away my breath, to come out. It’s going to suffocate me if it stays in.

The vanity in this insanely sized bathroom has six drawers. And not a single one of them has a razor, or a pair of scissors, or even nail clippers. Who doesn’t have nail clippers?

I yank open the linen closet and find everything I need. Even a first aid kit to clean up after.

The bathroom door bursts open, banging off the wall and Zack’s in here with me. Shoving the closet door closed and aiming his fierce gaze at the nail trimming kit in my hand.

“What do you think you’re doing, little bird?” His chin is buried into his chest, and he’s looking up at me through hooded eyes.

My breath catches as he taps a finger onto the plastic box in my hand.

“I need a minute,” I tell him, some of the bravado slipping from my voice. He advances on me.

Step by step, he walks me across the bathroom until my back hits the wall. One hand slaps the wall to my left, another to the right. I’m neatly caged inside his storm.

I raise my chin, ready to take him on.

This isn’t his pain to work through. It’s mine. All mine.

“Are you afraid of me, little bird?” He levels me with his glare. Heat pools inside me when he stares at me with his darkness. “Are you afraid of what I will do to you?” He arches his left eyebrow, and it reminds me of the first time I saw him.

He’s challenging me.

“No.” I shake my head a little, my grasp loosens on the nail kit. “I’m afraid of what you won’t do to me.”

His other brow lifts. A smile tugs on his mouth until he’s grinning like a proud papa.

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