Page 73 of Haunted Prey

“See? She’s already getting aggressive with her words, really uncalled for.”

“Leslie,” Andrea warned.

“Or she might come after you, stab you in the back, and I have to protect you.” When she shook her head, he laughed. “Nah, maybe not. “He turned his body toward Lena, staring her down. “But someone has to snatch her phone away in case she decides to change her mind.”

Lena scoffed. “Dom will cut me off since he’ll be listening.”

He pointed at her. “One wrong word and the phone meets water.”

Lena tried to turn her back on him, but only managed to twist her torso toward me. “Anyway, I shouldn’t be long. You’ll be okay too?”

I fixed her with a smile. “Yeah, I think so. If you talk to Jamie, you’ll tell him I’m alright too, won’t you?”

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll tell him your phone died. I’ve already made up a bullshit story, something about my phone stopped working and we got a little too tipsy so we stayed with a friend in the city and we were up all night and slept all day. Bad decisions all around.”

Sounded like a full-proof plan to me.

I shut her door and stepped away as Andrea backed out, turning out of the garage.

We then prepared dinner. Or rather Micheal cooked and Emery helped. Dom would have helped too, but he needed to listen in on Lena’s conversation. Cassidy didn’t come out of her room. I offered to help as well but Emery refused and told meto let him take care of me. I didn’t feel like arguing so I found a space on the couch, using the cold press Andrea had offered me while watching Dom at his station, waiting to see if at any moment he’d cut Lena off.

Thankfully, he never had to. And by the time dinner was ready, Andrea was driving back.

We ate together, and for the first time in this crazy situation, things felt at least a little normal. Even Cassidy came out and was polite enough to keep quiet as we sat around one of the tables, passing each other plates of chicken, potatoes and carrots. Micheal was the most normal of the bunch, keeping the conversation light and away from all the awful dark talks we had all day. Lez sometimes said idiotic things and some of us even laughed.

Emery sat beside me, his arm across the back of my chair, keeping me close as I took bites of the chicken.

He trailed his fingers across my back, and I clenched my fork tight, forcing myself to stay in the moment.

A band of misfits, who only had each other. It was hard to believe they had found one another, but it was good they had.

I helped clean up after, feeling the hairs on my back stand up, knowing Emery was watching me, still hungry for his little rabbit. My heart pounded, knowing what he was thinking. The memory of when we reunited returned to the forefront of my mind. How badly he wanted to continue where we left off.

How badly I liked that too.

Once everything was put away, however, Micheal had other plans.

“One last meeting without the girls. I have a few more things I want to go over before the day ends.”

I wanted to argue, but Lena was perfectly fine with that.

“I’m down to go to bed early. I’m exhausted,” she said. “Since I was too scared shitless to sleep last night.” Then she pulled meclose and whispered, “I’ll keep my eyes open long enough to fill you in on what everyone said when I called, okay?”

I looked at Emery and caught the disappointment on his face before it vanished quickly. “I’ll be right by.”

He pulled me into a hug, his lips against my hair. I felt eyes watching us. The others still didn’t understand. I wasn’t usually one to give a fuck in that regard, but I didn’t feel like listening to another argument from outside the room if I could help it. So I followed Lena, bidding good night to others.

Now that everyone was asleep, I lay awake knowing he was just outside. I knew he wasn’t sleeping either.

A clock on the wall above us read midnight. I lowered my eyes to Lena, listening to her steady breathing. Slowly, I rose from the mattress and slipped off the side, careful not to wake her.

Quietly, I took off the spare pajama pants and shirt Andrea had given us and slipped back into my dress before creeping toward the door.

I reached for the knob and turned it, cracking the door open just enough to see the dark hallway. The only light came from a source within the main room, making shadows play on the walls. The biggest shadow reclined in a seat only a couple feet away.

I opened the door more and the shadow stirred. Emery’s head turned toward me and I could almost see the glow of his eyes.

“Evee…” he said softly, straightening in his seat, closing the book he had in his lap. “Everything okay?”

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