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“You sound just like him,” she finally said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He got to you quick, I see.”
He.
Aydin.
She shook her head. “Like a true, manipulative monster—”
“Like a father.”
It wasn’t at all like she was thinking. I barely knew Aydin, and I didn’t want to sleep with him. She was taking something far more complicated, and whittling it down to fit her own shallow perceptions of the world, so she could understand something she was determined not to ever comprehend.
I didn’t want to fuck him.
I cast a glance at the others before turning my eyes back on her. “I thought I’d remember my parents better since I was almost twelve when they died,” I told her. “I didn’t realize what a burden it takes off your shoulders to have guidance. I didn’t realize I’d missed it so much until I had it again.”
Aydin Khadir had an agenda. He stole me, put me in a dangerous position, and manipulated me.
But people change people, and while he was no hero, I couldn’t help but feel a little grateful. I’d been dying before I woke up in Blackchurch.
“I was safer in a house full of criminals than I was with my brother, because of Aydin,” I gritted out, “so you may as well exhale, because I won’t apologize for seeing something good in him. You did at one time, after all.”
She stood there, silent with a glimmer in her eyes, but her jaw flexed, and she didn’t budge.
Always strong. It was something I loved about her. He’d made her, too, after all. Even just a little.
“Now, may I please use someone’s phone?” I asked.
After a moment, Erika reached over and plucked hers out of the cup holder of the stationary bike and handed it to me.
“Thank you,” I said, backing out of the room and leaving them all alone again. “I’ll bring it back within the hour.”
• • •
I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling, blowing out a breath and shifting between the two huge bodies on both sides of me.
Too hot in here. Damn.
I looked over at Micah, seeing his face buried in his pillow, and then turned my head, seeing Rory. His blond hair covered his eyes and his arm was pinned under his head. Both men were shirtless, but they’d thankfully kept their pants on.
After I’d found a room and made my call with Erika’s phone, they pounded on the door, insisting to stay with me because the “pampered little know-it-alls who thought their shit didn’t stink aren’t getting a piece of you.”
As if Micah and Rory weren’t a little pampered themselves.
It was actually pretty adorable, though, and now we’re all cramped in my bed as the moon shone outside and the train vibrated under us.
To hell with it. I’d take all the friends I could get right now. I liked them.
Sitting up, I climbed over Rory’s body and gently stepped out of bed, looking down at the two beautiful guys and their sleeping forms. A serial killer on one side, and the so
n of a terrorist on the other. Man, my parents would be proud.
What were they both going to do after we got to Thunder Bay? They couldn’t go home. Would someone be coming for them?
For Will?
Still in my jeans and shirt, I slipped on Alex’s sneakers and tied them up.
I left the room, steam from the heaters fogging up the windows, but I could see the rain splattering on the outside.
