Page 23 of On The Edge
“It seemed like a good idea. She was getting ready to bolt.” Reis shrugs, and adjusts a few of the rings on his long fingers while staring at me.
“Dude, I said that years ago, drunk as hell, and missing Melody like the air I needed to breathe. You cannot just handcuff someone to you so they won’t leave.” Markus steps around Kai and me to get to Reis, and I yank my arm to try and get the cuffoff. Nothing happens except Kai’s arm smacks my stomach and he fucking smiles like a psycho.
“Not getting away from me that easy, baby girl,” he says with a smile, showcasing his straight, white teeth.
Kai is the “guy-next-door” kind of handsome. Classically beautiful with thick blonde hair and a square jaw where you can see his muscle jump when he clenches his teeth. I used to watch him for hours to see what pissed him off or frustrated him enough to make that muscle move.
Sexy as hell.
He’s also a little bit of a secret psychopath. Always one wrong word away from jumping off the ledge or running off on his next adventure. The handcuff thing doesn’t surprise me at all, especially if Reis nudged him along.
“Why do you even care?” I snap, not backing down from his little show of crazy. I have my own brand of crazy and I’m not afraid to show it anymore.
“You know what? Let’s just say I don’t like losing.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Adam comes to stand by me, wrapping his arm intimately around my waist and Kai growls.
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“There’s been a new development,” Adam says to Kai, raising one eyebrow. “One you’re really going to like.”
“No, there hasn’t,” I say, looking between the two of them in frustration. “Kai, let me go.”
He just smiles down at me like I’m challenging him. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“What doesthatmean?”
“It means,” Reis snaps, pushing away from Markus to come closer to me, “you’re coming with us, sweetheart.”
Back the fuck up–what?
“Yeah, right. No, that is not happening.”
“Reis, not like this.” Adam looks torn–like he wants to take me, but he doesn’t want to cross some line.
“Exactly like this. It shouldn’t be an issue, should it? She sees us as her brothers and wants nothing more to do with us. I think she should get to see just how well the band she didn’t think would make it actually did.” Reis' words strike me like a punch to the chest because those words… They remind me of what I had to say to Darcy, the lie I had to tell to protect myself. “So, come on,sis. Let’s go home.”
Reis has that look in his eye, the same one he used to get when he couldn’t move on from something; a B+ on a test he knew he aced, the melody to a chorus he couldn’t quite figure out, when he wanted to get shredded and his workout routine wasn’t cutting it anymore.
Focused. Obsessive. Determined without distraction.
It’s like now that he’s seen me again, he’s going to make sure I stay no matter what.
Calling me sis was like a smack across the face, and Adam negates it by slapping my ass in a verynon-sisterway.
“Looks like you’re coming home with us, Echo.”
Four sets of eyes wait for me to answer, like I have some kind of choice. But we all know the truth; I go quietly, or they make me.
I’ve never had a choice.
“You can’t just–” I start to argue, but Kai just sighs and picks me up. “Put me down!”
“You’re coming with us. And that’s that, Sync, so get used to it.”
They all have a mix of delight and acceptance, as I smack Kai’s back, trying to get him to put me down. Reis' eyes narrow as a slow, sinister grin covers his face that promises pain. Adam shakes his head, looking down and biting the collar of his shirt in reluctant acceptance, while Markus follows along.
