Page 137 of Prodigal Son

“It’s daylight.”

“Barely, with this rain. Come on, lie down.”

Cass slid under the covers obediently, and her eyes fluttered shut, overcome with a sudden, dizzying wave of emotion, as Raven kissed her forehead and smoothed her hair back one last time.

“Get some sleep.”

She nodded, the lump in her throat too large to speak around.

Raven clicked off the lights and left.

But Cass didn’t go to sleep. She couldn’t.

When she felt sure that Raven was gone, she slipped out of bed and headed down the hall. She didn’t know which room to look for, but she didn’t have to, because she bumped into Mercy first.

He was one of the few who didn’t look dead on his feet with exhaustion, sipping coffee as he walked along, humming to himself.

“Hey, kiddo,” he greeted.

“Hi.” She felt her own smile tugging; it was pretty impossible not to smile at the guy. No one that big and dangerous should have been so cheerful, and she loved the contradiction. “Where’s Reese? I wanted to thank him.”

Mercy’s smile froze. His brows lifted slowly. “Reese? Uh, yeah. I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

And here came the patronizing.

She folded her arms. “You guys sent him in through the ceiling to kill a guy in front of me. But it’s a bad idea to say thank you?”

“Uh, well…” He rubbed at he back of his neck with his free hand. “When you put it like that.” He sighed. “Look, Cass, Reese isn’t exactly…what you’d think of as normal.”

Her turn to lift her brows. “Okay. And what part of all this” – she twirled her finger to indicate the building, the club, the circumstances – “am I supposed to think is normal?”

“An excellent point. But you know what I mean.”

She sighed. “Yeah. He’s – he’s pretty spooky, actually.” She was a little afraid those emotionless pale eyes would chase her into her dreams – nightmares, really.

“Just so long as you remember that. Come on.” He led her down the hall and around the corner. Knocked on a door and poked his head in, said something low she couldn’t hear, before opening it fully and stepping inside, waving her in after him.

Reese sat cross-legged on the bed, back to the wall, wearing a shirt this time – the part of her that was sixteen, and female, and breathing regretted the plain black-long-sleeve, and the way it covered his muscled torso – and polishing a wicked-looking knife. Without the black paint, his face proved to be narrow, jaw and cheekbones prominent, chin pointed, his nose narrow and sharp. The eyes, though, when they lifted to her, were the same, cold and inscrutable.

Cass became very aware, suddenly, that she was wearing one of her brothers’ old t-shirts and ratty sweatpants. She tucked her hands inside her sleeves and approached the bed carefully, glad Mercy was still back there, lingering in the open doorway.

“Hi, Reese.”

His gaze pinged down to her slipper-clad feet and back to her face, managing not to linger anywhere in between. “Hello.” He said it awkwardly, like a line he’d rehearsed.

She’d known what she wanted to say; she wasn’t shy, by nature, and so rarely felt at a loss for words. But she found herself tongue-tied now, not because he was beautiful – which he was – but because hestaredat her, without a shred of self-consciousness. Like Tarzan, she thought with in inward, giddy laugh. Like a boy raised in the wild, who hadn’t the foggiest notion that it was impolite to look at someone so directly like this, without making any sort of ease-putting facial expression.

She gathered a breath and plunged on. “I wanted to thank you,” she said, “for saving me. That was…that was really…really good of you. So yeah. Thanks.”

He stared at her a moment longer, blinked, and then resumed polishing his knife, gaze dropping to the task. “You’re welcome.” And that sounded rote, too.

She wanted to ask him so many questions.

Where are you from?

Why are you like this?

Are you some sort of robot? Or half a robot? Like onStar Trek?

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