Page 83 of Ravens
William passes me without a second look.
Asshole.
I get back up, but when I take another step, I stumble in pain. “Ah!”
William keeps going, putting yards between us.
“Stop,” I say meekly, but he keeps going. “Stop!”
Pausing, he turns around, but I can’t see his face in the dark.
“I can’t walk. Something is wrong with my foot.”
He says nothing, does nothing.
“Can you help me . . . please?”
Without a word, he walks back toward me, a long shadow in a landscape of shadows. I stand there awkwardly on the side of my foot, shivering as he approaches with no sense of urgency. I want to yell at him and tell him he’s a dick, but I believe he’d just turn back to the house and leave me out here to crawl back.
He grabs me and tosses me over his shoulder, his hand slapping on the back of my thigh, and I shout, slapping his back ashe laughs. As if he had to carry me this way. I could have just used him as a crutch.
I’m carried through the mudroom, and the smell of food makes my stomach growl and my mouth water.
“What the hell is going on?” Carter barks as we cross the kitchen.
“She ran,” is all William says as he hefts my ass down on the counter.
“I ran fromyou,” I hiss. “If I was running fromthis shit”—I fling my arms out—“I would have put shoes on!”
He crouches to look at my injured foot, and I kick him in the shoulder with my other foot, causing him to lose his balance and fall to his ass. Rocketing back to his feet, he gets in my face, chest heaving.
“Back up.” Carter grabs his arm, but William shakes him off.
“Back up,” York’s voice repeats, cutting through the tension.
I break William’s glare to find York in the entryway from the hall staring at us. William grunts in frustration and swipes at the ceramic canisters on the counter. The unexpected movement makes me squeeze my eyes shut. The sound of the canisters breaking as they hit the floor makes them open again. Tea and sugar are all over the place as William stalks out of the room.
York edges into the kitchen. “What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does when it looks like you’ve taken a beating.”
Looking down at myself, I find my tights and sleeves muddied with bits of grass clinging to my clothing. With his good arm,he drags a chair over and sits in front of me wordlessly, and I lift my sore foot.
August and Carter busy themselves setting takeout containers on the dining table behind me, along with plates. York and I sit in this odd scene apart from them as he slides off my muddy sock and looks at the sole of my foot.
“Thorns of some kind,” he says quietly and then gets up. “August, can you pull those out?”
“I got it,” I grumble and cross my foot over my thigh, grabbing the tweezers from beside the sink. I must have stepped on a bramble. The three small brown spikes sting as I pull them out, but once it’s done, the pain is gone.
Torn between eating and showering, the decision is made for me when I feel William begin to drip down the inside of my thigh. Sighing, I head up to the bathroom and take a quick shower before redressing in clean, dry clothes and throwing everything else in the washing machine.
When I walk into the dining room, they’re all still at the table, save William, who I can see in the kitchen sweeping up the floor.
“I’ll change your dressing when you’re ready.” I glance at York.
York nods, going back to his conversation with August as I stare at the food numbly for a moment. Eventually, I serve myself some rice and orange chicken, eating quietly before disappearing upstairs.
