Page 32 of Devious Madness

His gaze moves to my neck, and he grabs my chin to tilt my head to the side so he can get a better look. I wince, because his thumb is pressing into the bruise there, but I don’t complain.

Now is the wrong time to say anything.

“It’s not deep, but it needs to get cleaned. Who knows what he had on that knife.” He lets go of me and settles his stare on me.

I wish he wouldn’t.

The calmness of before has been replaced with a cold that I can almost feel. I’ve seen him irritated. Angry even. Nothing compares to the look he’s giving me now.

“I-I’m sorry. I had to pee.” It’s such a stupid thing to say, but I have nothing else to offer.

His jaw ticks. I can hear his teeth grinding together.

Without a word, he leaves me and stalks off to the car. At this point, he doesn’t need to tell me he wants me to stay put. I’m too shell shocked to do much else than stand still.

He grabs his black duffel from the back seat and slams the car door before stalking back to me. When he reaches me, he grabs my elbow and starts pulling me with him.

Thankfully, he goes around the bushes the opposite side of where the dead body lays as he half drags me toward the cabin.

“Are you sure it’s safe in there?” I question, like an idiot.

He must not think I deserve an answer, because he doesn’t give one.

On the outside it looks like a rustic hunting cabin tucked in the middle of nowhere. But on the inside, it’s all the comforts of home. He pulls me through the living room, past the kitchen, into a bathroom.

Without a word, he swings me around and pushes me down to sit on the toilet while he tosses his bag onto the counter.

“You need to shower off all that blood. Clean your neck real good.” He pulls out a bar of soap and drops it onto the counter.

“A shower?” I look at the walk-in shower with the glass doors, clean white and gray marbled tiles. It looks nice enough.

He grabs my face again, pulling my attention up to his eyes. They’re still dark, but there’s a little wrinkle between them now. He seems slightly less likely to kill me for saying the wrong thing.

“Get in the shower. Wash up. Get dressed and wait for me in here. Do not leave this room until I get back.” He leans down until his nose is almost touching mine.

Worse. His mouth is close enough that I wonder if he’ll kiss me like he did in the hospital.

“Mira. Repeat back to me what I said.”

I smile a little. “You said to take a shower and wait here.”

He makes a little grunting sound.

“Where are you going to be?” I ask while he digs out some towels from the linen closet in the bathroom.

He yanks off the towels already hanging from the rack outside the shower and replaces them with the clean towels.

“I have to deal with him.”

My stomach rolls again at the image flashing in my mind.

“Is…is he why you needed to come here? Because you needed to…kill him?”

He looks at me, his features going stoic. “I needed information from him.”

“Oh.” I pause only a beat. “Did you get the information?”

“No.” He grabs his bag from the counter and leaves the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

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