Page 29 of Escape From Me

What was I supposed to do?

Zeid tried to reach for my hand, and I pulled away.

“What will you do if this doesn’t work out? Kill me?”

I didn’t know why I said it. But I had. It was out there.

I glared out the window like I could hate the world and it would stop shitting on me. But my solace didn’t last long. I knew whose arm was wrapping around my waist and unbuckling the seatbelt that kept me from getting even closer to the door than I’d been. I didn’t fight him. I let him pull me onto his lap.

Cas and Rylee were talking in lowered voices, and I didn’t care what they were talking about. Probably me. What was new?

Zeid’s voice was low and calm when he spoke in my ear. Spoke just to me.

“I’ve never started a fight I couldn’t win. I’ve never placed a bet that wouldn’t pay out. I had already thought through every possible scenario that the universe could throw at us before I ever touched you. And all of them end up with you being mine.”

I tried to pull away. “Those are just pretty words from a delusional asshole.”

His fingers swiped over my collarbone and I shivered.

“That’s prince asshole to you, dove. And they aren’t just words. I just seem to know, and I trust it. I trust almost no one. You’ve met them all, in fact. So when I said that my soul knows what it needs and you’re it? That means I will follow you to hell and back. I will beg, steal, and murder to get to you if you’re in heaven. No one will take what is mine.”

Something about the way he said that seemed to be like glue to the shattered pieces of my soul.

But then there was the part of me that looked at the world like it was. It was empty and evil and obedience kept the pain away.

So I shut up and let him think that what he said was what I believed because more than ever, I wanted to believe him. Believe that anyone would want me for me. But what a joke the world was now. I’d given my virginity to everything my father hated and now I was bringing him to my uncle’s funeral. An uncle that was most likely murdered by a gang.

Fate had a sense of humor.

Gangs had destroyed my family. What would my father have been had his brother never been killed? And now? I’d given myself to not just a gang member, but to someone that could control them.

I swallowed down the lump that sat in my throat. Sadness? No that wasn’t right. Something else.

Moments passed and I did what I did best. I somehow breathed through the tears, but something else was different. My chest ached and I couldn’t will it away.

THIRTEEN

zeiden

Silence was usually my companion,so why did it feel so lonely in Daisy’s silence?

I rubbed at my chest like that would stop whatever this vice was squeezing down inside me. When was the last time I’d strangled someone? I needed a fight, except even that didn’t seem like it was going to fix this.

What would I do to prove my obsession with her? Obsession wasn’t the right word though. There was something, and I wasn’t ready to actually understand it.

We sat in silence, my hand on her thigh because I needed to touch her. I also didn’t know how to tell her that X finished off her uncle. He’d deserved it all, but it didn’t seem like she would understand any of it, so I kept that little detail to myself.

Her father might be known for trying to clean up the city, but did she know how corrupt the government was?

“Your uncle, did you think he was a good cop, dove?” What were her thoughts?

The cars passed us by at this time of day, but although the world was going on, I couldn’t help but think that something about my world had stopped.

“Yes. He was an officer of the law. Aren’t they all good?”

I didn’t want to tell my dove that some people didn’t have a soul no matter how normal they might seem and her uncle had crossed the wrong people. Something also told me the younger brother who became a casualty of the Vipers might have signed his own death warrant.

The traffic thinned more the further we moved toward the established outskirts of the city, where the oldest and most prestigious cemetery was. This place felt a bit like home away from home, but not because I’d ever buried anyone here. No, not me. But the mayor? I’d watched from a distance to see who had showed up to his funeral. Strange how the senator hadn’t crossed my radar. I must be losing it. I’d known he was the brother of the detective, but it hadn’t seemed pertinent. Of course, there hadn’t been a single news article, cause of death report, or anything to make the younger brother’s death a flag. It didn’t matter now. He was on my radar for something else.

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