Page 54 of Fearless

“Cole, Meisie. Meisie, Cole.”

Cole gets to his feet, a wide smile on his mouth. He comes around the side of the desk, wiping his palms on his pants before tucking his thumbs into his pockets.

“Miss Ford,” Cole says, oozing…well I guess it’s supposed to be charm. “The pleasure is all mine.”

Yeah, I don’t doubt it. I cringe when he steps forward and sticks out a hand and instead hastily take a step back. My eyes fly to Cillian.

I know neither of us are psychic. I don’t believe in any of that crap. But when we lock eyes and I beg him—fucking beg him—to get me out of here, something has to reach him because he’s suddenly standing a little straighter, his jaw a little tighter than before.

“Not as chatty as you made her out to be,” Cole says through a laugh. He plucks his hand away, and heads back behind the desk, ripping open a desk drawer and rummaging with sudden urgency inside it. “Care for a line or two? Nothing like some blow to liven up your life, amiright?”

I’m still staring at Cillian.

But he drops his eyes, a tiny frown popping up between his dark eyebrows. “Tell her,” he says.

“Manners, Kill,” Cole croons from his chair as he takes it for a literal spin before coasting to a stop by his previous coke lines. “When’s the last time you shared a line with your brother?”

Brothers. Yes, I remember now.

“You’re twins?”

Both their heads snap to face me. The girl puts a hand over her mouth and giggles—not at me, I don’t think, but at their reactions.

Yeah, in that moment, it’s kinda fucking obvious, but…

God, I’m seconds away from a straitjacket and a permanent string of drool swinging from one corner of my mouth, aren’t I? Their faces areidentical, and I missed it?

Sure, there’s the little things.

The maniacal gleam in Cole’s eyes, compared with Cillian’s cold, calculating stare.

But seriously?

They even have the same fucking haircut.

Cole sits back in his seat, dropping the hand holding the little baggie of white powder in his lap as if his nerves stopped working. “You for fucking real?” he asks, but in the kind of voice that you know he’s not really expecting an answer.

Cillian pushes away from the desk he’d been leaning against and stands to one side, waving a hand from me to his brother.

Histwin.

“Go on. Tell her.”

But Cole’s just staring at me, his drugs suddenly forgotten.

What? What did I do?

That’s when Cole studies me.

And, dear God, my skin crawls. It’s like Cole’s peeling away the shirt Cillian gave to me wear. I can practically feel his hands on me, touching me everywhere, despite how hard I scream inside my head.

Which is when the walls start closing in.

My chest snaps closed like one of those treasure chests in the bottom of a cheap aquarium.

No oxygen for Meisie.

The dark edges of the room swarm closer, those shadows reaching with wicked sharp claws, ready to tear away my clothes, my skin, my flesh, my virginity.

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