Page 19 of Fall

“All right then,Ravage”—Nero tilts his head toward Val, pulling his attention off of me—“you get to help. Kieran’s done his share of the heavy lifting, and it looks like she might deserve a break from being gnawed on by you. Ever consider how she’s going to explain those bruises on her throat to her friends if you let her go?”

His use ofifmakes my stomach twist uncomfortably, but I don’t let the sudden anxiety show on my face. Instead, I keep my features carefully impassive, and listen to their conversation with rapidly growing interest.

“Can’t you ask someone else?” Val grumbles, scuffing his foot along the floor. “Literallyanyoneelse? This is Erika’s problem, not mine?—”

“Sure, absolutely.” Nero’s voice is sweet, almost mockingly so. “How about I take Noa with me? I’m sure she’ll love tracking down some dead girl’s brother more than being cooped up here with the two of you.”

“Absolutely,” I agree without hesitation, even though I know it isn’t a real offer. “Amateur detective work? Sign me up. I’ve bingedCriminal Minds. I’ll totally be your profiler.”

All three of them look at me with varying degrees of humor on their faces. Though Kieran’s ‘humor’ looks a lot like exasperation instead, weirdly enough.

“Maybe next time, pretty girl.” Nero chuckles with the flash of a grin. “I’m sure I could use your profiling skills in my job.” I want to ask what his job is, but I’ve used up my bravery for the moment. So I just listen as Val continues to complain, though before long he’s pulling on his shoes and grabbing his jacket from the table.

“I’ll bring him back to you in one piece, probably,” Nero assures me, as if I was worried about that. I just raise my brows at them, ignoring Val as he blows me a dramatic kiss before following the taller man outside and closing the door behind them.

Leaving me alone with Kieran in the cabin while he justlooksat me from his same spot on the wall.

9

“You’re definitely hungry,”Kieran sighs after a few moments of us listening to a car engine start and seconds later get fainter and fainter as the two of them leave. “Remote’s on the table beside you if you want to watch something.” With that, he pushes off the wall and heads for the kitchen, feet scuffing on the wooden floor before he yanks open the fridge to stare inside.

“I could run away. One-on-one is better odds than two-on-one?” I offer, looking around until I find the remote and pick it up.

He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he stays silent as he does whatever it is he’s doing, and I flip on the television while giving the front door, which I know is unlocked, yearning glances. Eventually I settle on some documentary about America’s most haunted places, though I’m barely paying attention. I don’t know how Icanpay attention considering everything that’s going on.

When Kieran sits down beside me on the couch, not giving me much personal space, I glance up at him in surprise. But he just hands me a small plate with a piece of pecan pie on it, and a glass bottle of coffee. Specifically, a white chocolate latte. “Thanks,” I can’t help murmuring, though I glance up at himwith narrowed eyes when his thigh brushes my knee. “You know there’s a whole couch on the other side of you, right?”

“Yeah, I do.” He glances up at the TV, snorts, and looks back to me as another rumble of thunder sounds outside. “And to answer your other question, just because Val isn’t here doesn’t mean you have any better chance of getting away from here. Actually, he’d be better for you in that way. You might be able to beg and plead and promise with him. Maybe he’d even believe you.”

“And you won’t? To be clear, I wasn’t offering to give you a private PowerPoint presentation, Kieran.” My words are flat and brittle, though when he just gives methe look, I feel my bravado wilt.

“I know what you were suggesting, little girl. Eat your breakfast before you start planning escape attempts.” I can’t really argue with that. Not when he’s given me two of my favorite things for breakfast. Instead, I focus on eating, happy as hell with the cold pecan pie and bottled coffee. And I’m hungrier than I expected, given the fact he handed me a piece of pie that normally would be a bit too big for me to comfortably finish in one sitting. Much less in under five minutes. But soon enough it’s gone, leaving me to daydream about what other kinds of pies they have on the premises.

Not that I’ll let myself be won over by pie and shitty documentaries.

Minutes later Kieran finishes his as well, and he wordlessly plucks my plate from my hands and carries both them and his now-empty coffee back to the kitchen. “He’ll be gone for a while,” Kieran tells me, his voice drifting from the other side of the cabin.

“So I have all day to stab you, steal your keys, and make my getaway? By the way, since I don’t have my phone, could you tell me the weather forecast for the rest of the day?” Turning, I restmy chin on my arm that’s looped over the back of the sofa to watch him move around the kitchen.

“Sure you do. And it’ll be storming all day and tonight. Why? Are you afraid of lightning?” Finally, he’s done washing off the plates and forks, and he puts them back where they belong before turning to prowl back to my side of the cabin.

“One of my cats is,” I say, my heart twisting at the idea of completely leaving them alone. I know they’ll be fine, as long as what Val told me is true, but I still can’t help but aggressively worry about them. “But I’m not. I like storms.” My eyes follow him as he comes back to sit down on the sofa, and yet again, he invades my personal bubble without a word. This time he’s facing me more fully, and he reaches out to tuck my hair behind my ear.

“You’re a mess,” he murmurs softly, looking me over. “Nero’s right about that. You do look like the poster child for domestic abuse right now.”

“Thanks. That’s so flattering—” I break off when he gets to his feet, confused while he wordlessly disappears into the bedroom.

When he returns, he’s carrying a brush in one hand, and he sits down on the other end of the couch this time. “Come here.” Kieran gestures to me with his fingers as he drops one leg to the floor invitingly.

But I just sit there, my eyebrows climbing toward my bangs in surprise and bemusement. “Oh yeah? You’re going tobrush my hair? I didn’t take you for Mr. Domesticity.”

“You only take me for a murderer. And you don’t know anything about me. So…” He gestures for me to move closer to him again.

Yet again, I open my mouth to refuse. I have no reason to trust him anymore after everything that’s happened. But then he tilts his head to the side and gives me a new kind of look. One that’s actually sweet and a little pleading. His hand reaches forme, still held out into the air between us, and God, it’s hard to ignore him when he looks like that.

“I trusted you yesterday morning, you know,” I murmur without moving. If anything, I tense, dragging my knees more tightly to my chest. “Itrustedboth of you.” My voice breaks, and I hate the sudden pressure of tears behind my eyes that I have to fight to blink away. “And now you want to unalive me in the woods.”

“I donotwant to unalive you in the woods,” Kieran disagrees. “Neither of us do. If we wanted that, you wouldn’t have woken up yesterday morning. That wasn’t just some kind of weird victory lap for us to taunt you. But Icannotplace your safety above ours. All I’m asking is for you to give me a little bit of time to figure this out, all right? To make sure we can trust you won’t go to the cops about us.”

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