Page 108 of Price of Angels

Michael struggled against Mercy’s grip. “Let go of me,” he said through his teeth.

“Why? So you can finish him off?”

It seemed the whole party was emptying out of the clubhouse, men and women. The questions they passed back and forth became a low, insistent humming of sound.

“Let go,” Michael repeated, and his eyes came to Holly.

She didn’t want to imagine the pitiable state of her composure, what she must look like to him. But when his eyes landed on her, the rigid tension left his jaw. His lips parted as he pulled in a deep breath through his mouth, and his always-narrowed, carefully hooded eyes were wide and wild and hot with fear. It was fear that he turned toward her. Fear that he was held captive, and couldn’t get to her.

Oh, Michael.

Mercy followed Michael’s gaze, glancing over at her, too. His lips pressed together, a fast look of understanding. He leaned forward and whispered something in Michael’s ear, to which he responded with a fast, jerky nod.

Mercy released him.

People were still talking, asking questions, some demanding answers, speculating. RJ had been laid on a picnic table and many were hovering around him. Many more were shooting Michael dark looks.

Holly ignored all of it. She allowed him, as he walked toward her, to fill up every corner of her awareness, everything and everyone else fading to the black edges beyond her periphery. She wrapped all her sight around him, let him push back against her panic.

She fell into step beside him as he caught her around the waist and kept walking. A protest formed and died in her throat when they entered the clubhouse; she was with him, she would not worry.

Through the common room, now mostly empty, he towed her, down the hallway Ava had mentioned before. Both sides were flanked with dark wooden doors, and he pounded on three with the side of his fist before he found one that someone didn’t shout “Occupied!” from the other side of.

He pulled her inside, shut and locked the door behind them, and only then did his arm leave her.

The room reminded her of a one of those two-story, side of the highway motels. A double bed with a dark comforter pulled up over the pillows, orange carpet, paneling on the walls. There was a Dog pennant above the bed. Light issued from two lamps, one on the nightstand, the other on a wide dressing table with a mirror, the light reflecting off it and back into the room. There was an open door on the other side of the bed, and she could see a vanity and sink beyond it: en suite bathroom.

She turned to Michael, and there were deep lines pressed around his mouth, his expression grim. Holly wanted to trace them with her fingertips, smooth them away.

“What did he do to you?” His voice was low and furious. “Did he touch you?”

She shook her head. “He was just being friendly. All he did was put his arm around me. I overreacted. I was too nervous, and…” She shook her head, feeling the burn of tears at the backs of her eyes. She hated that she was like this, that the night had taken this turn.

“Don’t cover for him. Tell me the truth, Hol. Because I need to know right now if I’m going to have to go back out there and bounce his head off the asphalt.”

Her eyes flew wide with shock. “Why would you do that?”

Without flinching, his gaze unwavering, he said, “Because he scared you.”

The breath went out of her. Exhausted from nerves, strung-out on spent adrenaline, she took a step back and sank down onto the edge of the bed. She swallowed. “It’s not RJ’s fault. It’s mine. All of this” – she gestured to the walls, the clubhouse around them – “scared me. I…” She didn’t know what to tell him. How could she explain how crushing it felt to realize that she might never be normal?

He stood by the door a long moment, studying her. “Do you not trust me?” he asked. “You don’t think I can keep you safe?”

“No! No, that’s not it at all.”

“Then why did you leave?” He scowled at her, and something about the tension in his brows made her think he was trying desperately to understand. “I went back to the table, and you were gone.”

“I wanted some air.” She glanced away from him, ashamed. “I just wanted to be alone for a little bit, and then those girls…and then RJ…I don’t know why they couldn’t leave me alone.”

Soft sound of him snorting through his nostrils. Light tread of his boots across the carpet. Then he was crouched in front of her, and his hands were on her thighs, warm against the chilled skin of her legs through the denim.

“Hol.”

She lifted her head, and saw, to her absolute shock, that he was smiling at her. A small, but true smile, his lips curved, little lines gathering at the corners of his eyes. “You don’t know why they couldn’t leave you alone?”

She didn’t answer.

“There’s gotta be lots of people who look at you and don’t want to leave you alone,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean they want to hurt you.”

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