Page 224 of Like Grim Death: Part One
Then he drops his hand and turns away from him, and I see blood on his knuckles as Mav’s baby blue eyes come to mine.
Lucifer spits on the ground, twirling the knife between his fingers. “She’s a fucking cunt,” he says with venom. “I might owe you, but I don’t owe hershit.”
Maverick grinds his teeth but ignores him as he stalks toward me. Lucifer picks Sid up, one arm going under her knees, the other around her back as he cradles her to his chest.
Maverick offers me his hand.
I can’t tell what he’s thinking when he looks at me, but I know he’s taking in the blood on my face. His best friend’s blood.
I grab his hand and he hauls me to my feet. I expect a fight, but surprising me, he presses me to his side and says, “Let’s go.”
I hatethe sight of his blood on her face.
Just like I fucking hated Nikita’s man touching her, putting a gun to her head. And after I did what I did to all of them, I hated myself too. With Atlas, it felt like reclaiming the moment. Controlling it in a way I could.
But I shouldn’t have left her.
I lock the door behind us, gripping her hand as I lead her into the bathroom, everything dark tile with royal blue accents.
When I turn to her, crushing her fingers with mine, she’s got one hand on her throat, and I see where Lucifer cut her.
Blood roars in my ears, and I desperately want to go down the hall and pay him back for marring her skin, but I think I’ve done enough of that. I think I’ve paid far too much fucking attention to Lucifer and his bullshit, all while Ella just stood by, waiting for me.
Well, I’m here now.
I think of Sid hurling that bottle, a party trick I’ve heard she likes to do, and Ella ducking fast enough to fucking impress the shit out of me.
Desire is like a punch to the gut, and suddenly, I don’t give a fuck about the blood on her mouth, streaking down her chin, along her throat. Lucifer’s and hers, it was pissing me off, but now, with her being right here, all mine, it kind of turns me on.
Her chest is heaving, black hoodie still on that I guess she got from our closet, but I can make out the rise and fall of her breasts regardless.
Fuck, I love you.
But whatever I’m feeling, whatever I’m thinking, it doesn’t seem like we’re on the same page, because she yanks her hand from mine, crossing both arms over her chest, letting the thin stream of blood drip into the edges of her hoodie.
“I need to clean up.” Her words are resolute, her nose in the air as she glares at me. It’s a dismissal, those words. She wants to clean upwithout me.
I run a hand through my hair, glancing at myself in the gilded royal blue mirror beside us. I have blood on my hand, my eyes are red, and Lucifer didn’t just markEllain crimson. I drop my hand to the edge of my shirt, tugging it away from my body as I take in the red stain.
“Okay,” I say, still looking at my brother’s blood. “Clean up.”
She doesn’t speak, and when I ball the fabric of my shirt in my fist and meet her gaze, I see defiance.
“I want to clean up,alone.”
The adrenaline starts to fade, everything we just went through dimming into the background of my mind, and I realize why all of this shit started in the first place.
It’s almost four in the fucking morning.
I couldn’t find her after I spoke with Brooklin.
I looked all over the fucking place for her, including going back to Atlas’s fucking room. Neither of them were there.
“Where the fuck were you?”
Her freckled face is tinged with pink, but she doesn’t drop my gaze. “Where wereyou?”she counters, baring her teeth. “You walked out on me. You fuck me with a gun to Atlas’s head, then you turn it onme,andyou. Walked. Out.”
I chew the inside of my cheek, shaking my head. Then the words come out, barely more than a whisper. “Did you go with Atlas, somewhere else?” Obviously, I checked our room too, and she wasn’t fucking here.
