Page 57 of Captive Souls

I could practically feel the pouty look she was directing in my vicinity as well as her desperation to argue. Which was logical. At first glance, the most sensible thing to do was leave the bleeding psychopath alone in a cabin while we made our escape.

Though I’d thought through escape continuously, understanding that it wasn’t that simple and it would likelymean both of our death warrants or a lifetime of looking over our shoulders.

I didn’t have the time or energy to explain the complexities of our situation to her right then.

I expected Daisy to force me to, so she surprised me by sighing before snapping, “Fine.” I heard her stomping around. “I’m going to eat, though. I’m starving.”

This time I did turn to look at her, finding her standing at the stove. I raised my brow at her as she heaped food onto a plate. “You’re going to eat across from the bleeding man you just shot while I try to extract the bullet from his flesh?” I clarified.

She shrugged. “I eat my dinner watchingThe Walking Dead.”

“That is not the same,” I muttered, but it was not the time to argue that.

My attention returned to Knox. He was lucidly watching me, eyes pinned to my body. I swallowed heavily at his gaze, realizing how close I was to him. The last time we were this close was minutes ago, when we were about to kiss. When he looked as if he was going to devour me whole. He still looked like that.

I forced myself to focus on the task at hand. Not to stare deeply into his eyes, not to examine complicated and thorny feelings, and definitely not to think about what might’ve happened had my sister not burst in and shot him.

“I’m going to dig the bullet out of your shoulder now,” I told him, forcing confidence into my tone.

“This your first time?” he asked, and I swore it sounded like he was teasing. He couldn’t possibly be. The range of emotions he’d displayed in such a short period of time was dizzying.

“This is a regular Saturday night for me,” I quipped. I had no idea if it was a Saturday night. I hadn’t been keeping track of the days, just the phases of the moon. “Your first time?”

He waited a long handful of seconds before replying. “In this particular scenario, yes.”

I pursed my lips at the admission. “Don’t worry, I’ll go slow.”

Silence passed between us. Somehow impossibly erotic to the point of making heat creep up my neck. In the presence of mysister. And with Knox bleeding to death.

What was happening to me?

Yet I couldn’t let go of Knox’s stare, couldn’t deny that the moment was electrified by something I couldn’t put my finger on. Once again, the foundation of what our dynamic was shifted underneath me, becoming more and more unstable. One wrong step and I could go tumbling into the darkness, never to be seen again.

I took a shaky breath, grasped the scalpel then readied myself to dig into Knox’s skin. As if he wasn’t living underneath mine already.

Twelve

Knox

Ihadn’t been shot before. Because I was good at my job. Any scars I had on my body, I’d put there myself.

I’d vowed I’d die that way. Without the marks of anyone else on my skin. Not when I had gnarled and knotted scars on my inside from someone I wish I could’ve killed ten times over.

Yet some fuckingballerinahad managed to not only sneak up on me but made me bleed. Shot me.

Not because of any kind of skill on her part, but because of how completely Piper consumed me. I was sucked into her world, her orbit, so that no outside forces penetrated.

Luckyhad never been a word I used to describe myself, but there wasn’t anything else to explain how the bullet hadn’t penetrated my heart, or worse, gone through my flesh and into Piper’s.

I thought of her skin being punctured, marred, and my fists coiled.

Daisy was sitting across from me as Piper dug into my flesh for the foreign object, eating food I’d prepared forPiper,glaring daggers at me.

Though I didn’t revel in hurting women, innocent women—including women who looked to be as breakable as porcelain dolls and half my size—an ugly, evil part of me ached to hurt her for putting Piper in danger. Even if she had been attempting to save her.

She could’ve killed Piper. My vision tinged red at the thought.

The pain helped. It was the only thing keeping me lucid. That and Piper’s hands on my skin, her tunneling into my body, her being the source of that pain.

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