Page 72 of Unmask
Her mouth opened, but the snark she usually fired off so easily stalled. The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was taut, crackling like lightning waiting to strike. Something raw lived in that moment. Something neither of us wanted to name, but reality shattered the calm like a brick through glass.
Her face changed. The softness drained out of her expression, replaced by a slow, soul-crushing dread. She blinked again, this time too fast, too hard. Her bottom lip trembled. “It…it wasn’t a nightmare? Kenny?”
I didn’t answer.
“She’s really gone.” Her voice broke. “Kenny’s gone.” Her fingers shook as she reached for the edge of the blanket, gripping it like it could hold her together. But it wouldn’t. Nothing would right now.
I slid my hand across the mattress, found hers, and laced our fingers. Her skin was cold. Mine was burning. “I’m going to find her,” I said quietly. “I swear it, Kaylor. I’m going to bring her home.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, glassy with unshed tears. “And if you can’t?”
I held her gaze, fierce and unflinching. “Then I make the bastards pay.”
“Maybe it would be easier if I just gave them what they wanted. She’s probably so scared. I could put an end to her nightmare, Kreed. I don’t know if I can wait and hope we find her.”
“You’re not going to them,” I said against her hair. The thought of her in the possession of someone so sick, someone who would sell one of their own to save their own skin… It made my chest burn with a protective instinct so fierce it nearly brought me to my knees.
“But she could die,” she whispered, her voice fracturing like glass. “If I don’t go?—”
“We’re going to find her,” I cut her off, my voice harder than I intended.
“What if we’re too late?” The question came out broken, raw terror bleeding through her words.
I pulled back just enough to look at her, to let her see the promise in my eyes, and kept our fingers tied together. “We won’t be. She has the Ravensandthe Elite looking for her. I’d say her odds of being found are pretty fucking good, little raven.”
With big light-blue eyes, she looked at me, and I would have promised her anything in that moment, anything to banish that sorrowful expression on her features. “I’m scared.”
Something cold and familiar stirred in my chest. Something that had been sleeping in the dark corners of my soul since the last time I’d made the mistake of caring too much. The thing that turned me into exactly what people feared when they whispered my name in the shadows.
For her, I’d become someone I didn’t like very much, but what troubled me was whether, when this was over, she would look at me the same. Would she still want me? Would she see a monster?
16
KAYLOR
Istared down at our woven fingers, his hand enveloping mine, and it couldn’t have felt more natural. His fingers were so much larger, stronger…marked. Each one inked with a suit from a deck of cards: spade, heart, club, diamond. Just a few of many tattoos inking his body, but it was the raven spread over his forearm that should have warned me he wasn’t safe.
But hefeltso damn secure, and that comfort I had from being with Kreed made my guilt magnify. I was in this lush bed with the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen, willing to risk his life for me, and my best friend was in a locked glass cage. It wasn’t fair.
My heart twisted painfully at the thought. As if my mind needed the reminder, flashes of that photo burned behind my eyes. It was my best friend, and yet it hadn’t looked like her, and I was here…in a warm bed, wrapped in blankets, cushioned by comfort…and, worse, beside Kreed.
It would be so easy to follow his lead, to lean into him, to let him shoulder the burden of everything. But would that help Kenny? Would that get her back?
I hated how tempting it was to stay locked inside this room, for how my body ached for the comfort Kreed offered, even as my soul was riddled with guilt. What kind of friend was I? My best friend was trapped in hell, and here I was…being held like I was breakable and protected like I was sacred.
Maybe that was why it felt so wrong. What made me so special? Why hadn’t Kenny had someone to protect her? Why hadn’tIprotected her?
It was making it damn hard to remember all the reasons I should be running away from Kreed. Why was it such a horrible idea to fall for him?
Drawing in a deep breath, I unwove our fingers and inched up into a sitting position on the bed. The soft hush of morning light spilled through gauzy curtains, the world too still, too quiet for how shattered I was inside. The air was cooler than I expected, or maybe it was guilt digging its nails in. “How long am I supposed to wait?” I asked, second-guessing my choice not to show the police the message I received.
If Kenny died because of me…
I’d never fucking forgive myself. Hell, I definitely wouldn’t forgive Kreed. It would be the end of us for good. Did he have any idea of the enormous risk I took in trusting him?
He sat back in the chair, his eyes shadowed with tiredness but alert, always alert. “It hasn’t even been a full day. Give us another forty-eight hours, and if we have nothing, we take that photo to the cops.”
What if she didn’t have forty-eight hours? I would go crazy. I couldn’t imagine how horrible this was for Kenny. “What the hell am I supposed to do in the meantime? Twiddle my thumbs?” School was out of the question. No way could I focus on homework. At the rate things were going, I’d be lucky if I graduated this year.
