Page 12 of Hunter
Instead, she remains frozen in place. Her hands are trembling, and it shakes me to my fucking core. Seeing her defend herself, while feeling defenseless, has my heart in literal fucking pain and my voice crumbling as I tell her, “You can trust me.”
“Fuck you, I don’t trust anyone,” she hisses out.I swear this girl is ninety percent angry black cat.
“Me either, but I trust him.” I keep my circle small. My family and my boys. That’s it. I control who you are to me, how I feel about you, and where I let you in. No one gets full access to me. My siblings get the closest. Alvi, Max, Monroe, and Jake, too. That’s it.
And then there’s her, spreading through me like wildfire. She's torched everything that I thought I knew. There's no fucking way that I'm gonna be able to stuff her tiny ass back inside the box that I tried to keep her in.Not when she set it ablaze and turned it to fucking ash.
Edison Santos is a fire-breathing demon that won't be contained.
I think about her all the time. She lives in my head like a pretty little nightmare.And right now, she’s a dream that I don’t want to wake up from.
I’m watching her look at me and feel fucking blindsided by how much I want her to believe that she’s safe. I want her to trust me.
“I wouldn’t put you in harm's way again.” The strong tone of my voice and conviction of my words grab her attention and doesn’t let go.
“Edison, put the knife down.” I’ve never been a patient person. If I want or need something, I do it. I don’t usually wait on anyone. Yet here I am watching her, waiting for her to retract her blade. “It’s okay, I'm not gonna let anyone out there hurt you.”
“You keep saying that,” she snaps, and her dark eyes search me up and down as she scans for bullshit. She won’t find any. I know that she doesn’t when she raises her dimpled chin ever so slightly.
“And I’ll say it a million times, every day until you believe me.” She’s still holding onto the knife. I track her tiny thumb as she hits a button for the out-the-front blade to retract back into the handle. I can tell by her murder eyes that she’s primed and ready to press the spring release button if shit goes south, and I can't help but think she looks like a fucking beautiful badass.
“Ugh, there’s no way I want to hear your voice that often, so how about you just shut the fuck up and open the door?”Fucking sassy little shit.
“We’ll see about that,” I mutter under my breath before shouting, “We good?” to Alvi on the other side of the door, and to Edison to her pretty face.
She hasn’t stopped looking at me, and having her undivided attention like this is the equivalent of skating on fresh ice; it’s now one of my favorite fucking things.
“I wouldn’t be knocking and waiting for your ass to open the door if we weren’t. They’re gone.” She drops her black eyes from mine, breaking contact before exhaling out through her nose and whispering, “Gracias diosas,” to herself.
She looks relieved, and now I look away. I don’t deserve to watch her have a moment of peace. Not when I’ve caused her so much fucking misery.
“Open the door, Hunt. I need to talk to her.” He sounds serious. I flip the lock, and he pushes through the door. His face is tight, and he looks annoyed.This ain’t gonna be good, I can feel it.
He walks behind his desk and takes a seat before motioning for her to sit on the couch along the wall. She doesn’t. So I don’t either.
“What's your name, sweetheart?” Alvi asks to break up the quiet in the room. Uncomfortable moments of silence like this throw me off. It forces me to confront whatever it is that has me silent to begin with. These internal check-ins are always sofucking loud… and so is a quiet Edison. She's taking her sweet-ass time to answer, and all I want to do is scream her fucking name as loud as I can.
“I can tell you it's not that,” she mouths off like the cute little punk she is.
“No, I guess it’s not.” He’s smirking at her while she sizes him up. “I’ve seen you around. You stay at the shelter?” He’s testing her to see if she's lying to him.
“I stay where I can.” And she's calculating every one of her answers.
“I'm guessing that you’re not from here. You a runaway?”Is she?I gotta be honest, I know jack-shit about her past. All I do know is that she's brave as hell.
“No.” Her voice is steel-plated.
“You wanna tell me where home is?” She doesn’t have to say New York City for me to hear it in her voice.
“Nope.” She pops the word, and it sounds like a gun firing. I watch it pierce through Alvi’s patience. He takes a long pause, narrowing his eyes at her.
“You know who they are?” He asks her in a don’t-you-dare-fucking-lie-to-me tone.
“No, I don’t.” And she claps back with an iron-clad answer.
“They think you killed their guy.” He narrows his stare, but she doesn’t break under the heavy pressure of Alv’s eyes. “That true?”
The spark in her eyes dies off like a star fading out in the midnight sky. But I know what’s coming next, I can feel the energy radiating off of her. It’s like watching a supernova take place, and I brace for impact as she explodes all over the room.
