Page 7 of Protect Me

I am out of options. I can’t survive alone, not in this rain, not with people climbing into my window and killing my drivers. Not with a killer on my trail. And I was so stupid that I left my phone behind. So, in the absence of anything else, this will have to do.

“Listen,” Marco sounds as if he’s choking a little bit. “Don’t be afraid of me.”

I almost take a step back, surprised. That was the last thing I expected him to say to me. He sounds so sad as he says it. So incredibly sad.

“I’m not…” I start saying, then stop. I am, I realize. I am scared of everything right now. Of him, of my feelings, of the gunshot, of the rain. Of him nearly drowning. Of him leaving. Of him coming back. Of the secrets. Of everything I don’t know. Of my own weakness.

I’m scared and I hate it.

“Don’t be scared,” he says again, as if he can read my thoughts.

How can I be attracted to someone so annoying?

“Just so you know, saying that doesn’t help,” I tell him. Just telling me not to be scared is enough to scare me worse than anything else, really. And I’ve already had like three panic attacks in the last hour, so that might be enough for tonight.

Marco makes a sound that’s half a snort and half a chuckle.

“Sorry,” he says. “I was saying it mostly to myself. Come on.”

His hand is still around my waist, and it tightens abruptly, and before I realize what’s happening, he’s swung me up in his arms.

“What are you—?” I sputter, spitting raindrops. “I can walk now.”

“Oh, I know,” he says, beginning to stride through the trees with me in his arms easily, as if I weigh nothing. He probably did that before, but I didn’t realize. Now I am fully conscious and I… Irealize. I’m aware of how close his chin is to my forehead, how tightly his arms are wrapped around every part of me, how frantic his heartbeat is drumming against my neck, how… Yes. I realize. Let’s just leave it at that. “I just thought I’d be the bodyguard for once.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

I don’t know if I want to laugh or punch him. Both, actually. Yeah, I want to do both.

“Your bodyguard,” he whispers, his lips wet with rain, and it sounds low and intimate, as if he’s saying it to himself. “Let me be your bodyguard, Olivia. Please.”

I don’t tell him not to call me that. The way his voice caresses over the words, as if I am something precious and good, and as if protecting me is something more than a job for him, makes me shiver.

I pretend I don’t hear the murmured words. I pretend I don’t feel his chest rise in a half-sob under my cheek, or his breath hitch as he fights to hold it back.

I pretend he’s not just one more liar in my life.

I think that after all these years, and especially after this past week and everything that happened in it, I’m finally too tired to care.

I just let him carry me.

***

I wonder where he’s taking us. I think of our cozy cabin with the hot bath and the fairy lights; we’re not going back there. Of course we aren’t. There are people climbing through the windows there, and who knows what else. Marco has been calling for backup for what feels like the past hour, and nothing and no one is showing up. Meanwhile, we keep heading deeper and deeper into the thick forest, away from the road and any kind of civilized path—and more importantly, away from warmth.

The cabin might be crawling with killers, which is not ideal, but, and hear me out here: it’s warm in there.

And out here, I am freezing. He is too, I can feel him shiver violently against me, and I don’t know how long he can keep on going like this. Not even God knows where we are right now. They won’t even find our bodies. No, stop thinking like that. Survive. Fight.

So I do fight, mostly to keep my eyes open and my breathing even.

Marco walks for about fifteen minutes more, carrying me through the woods, sure-footed and steady-paced, in spite of the exhaustion, and I snuggle against his chest, the cold making me sleepy and half-conscious.

Suddenly, he stops short. For a second, I think he stumbled in the darkness, but then I see what’s happened. He stumbled all right, but it wasn’t against a root or a fallen tree.

He stumbled against a body.

He almost drops me in his shock, but then immediately his arms tighten around me so hard I lose my breath. But not before I glance down and see what he’s seeing: There are bodies strewn about all over the forest floor. The trees are thinning out now, and there is a clearing ahead. The rain is getting weaker, little lines against the yellow light of Marco’s torch, and I can clearly see a huge barn looming against the black sky.

---