“I didn’t ask.”
We both stood there in silence for a few moments. The natural afternoon lighting from the windows was bright, highlighting how clean the place was. New. Unmarked. My shoes alone were tarnishing it. How much did a month’s rent cost?
“It’s too much,” I said. “We can’t afford it.”
“We?” he asked, raising his brows.
Smug bastard. Thinking he would pay for everything so that he’d own me. Not once I could help it.
“I’ll pay rent,” I said, “but this is out of my price range.”
Without acknowledging what I said, he walked away, as if he didn’t care at all. For once, I didn’t have the nerve to fight him. Not then. I needed sleep. A shower. Some hot food. Then I could protest.
Downstairs, I rummaged through the fridge, but I wasn’t hungry enough to eat. I ran my hands along the walls, feeling the textured pattern, and stopped at two double doors next to the kitchen, opening to a balcony. I opened them, standing in the warmth of the setting sun, watching the town bustle below me. I leaned on the rail, then fingered the key card in my palm. I could drop it over the railing. Watch it fall. I could forget my promise to stay by Heather. I could go somewhere else. Run away. Run as fast as I could, if those gray-white eyes wouldn’t follow me. The accidental death that clung to my skin like a fever I couldn’t sweat out. It sounded good to run away. To forget. To pretend.
But I couldn’t do that. Not this time. Eric, Zaid, and Grant were part of the worst situation I had ever been in. I needed to try,actually try, to have a normal life.
Once Grant left, going out the front door to the lobby, I went upstairs and explored my bedroom. Soft pink sheets with hot pink throw pillows decorated the bed. And though it was not the master bedroom, a small private bathroom was still attached to it. In the shower, my favorite coconut-scented soaps and gels were lined up neatly. I smiled, knowing that Heather had definitely had her personal touch here. I plopped down on the bed, and felt something hard underneath me. I reached under the pillow; a bag of sour hard candies. I grinned and ripped it open. Thank the universe for older sisters.
Halfway through the bag, my phone buzzed. The sender wasUnknownwith no number attached to it. A surge of adrenaline coursed through my body, and I took a deep breath. Eric was dead. And it didn’t make sense for scar-face to screw with me, so it had to be someone else.
There was no message. Only a picture. Me, standing on the balcony, resting my hands on the railing. As if the picture was taken from far away from a telephoto lens. As if I was being watched.
Grant. That asshole.
I stormed down the hallway and banged on his door. Was he even in there?
He opened up. “Did you send this?” I asked. I shoved my pink phone in his face. “What’s your damn problem?”
“Why would I send this?” he asked, his monotone voice deep.
“Because you’re trying to screw with my head.”
“I never left the building. I went to the concierge.”
Of fucking course. I’m sure she could vouch for him too. I rolled my eyes.
“What you should be concentrating on is what to do next,” he said. Fantastic. Use the opportunity to lecture me on normal life. Thanks, Muscle Boy. I knew I could count on you. “A job. School. A goal to establish your life in the real world.”
Because living in a ten-thousand-dollar-a-month apartment was ‘the real world.’
I clenched my hands shut, digging the nails into my palms. I had bit the nails off on the car ride over; the nails were coarse against my skin.
“You need a goal,” he said.
My only goal was to forget Dean. To forget why I was here with this asshole, Muscle Boy, in the first place. I dug my nails deeper into my palms, wanting to feel it, the stinging pain and the release that came along with it. I needed the pain, the way it reset my brain.
“You need a job,” he said.
The nails went deeper, but nothing would break. But I wanted it. Badly. Getting blood on the polished floors would be worth it. Marking my existence. To prove that I didn’t give care how expensive this place was. I hated it all.
“Or a degree,” he said.
He wanted me to go to college? “So you’re my father now?” I asked.
“I will do everything to help you, Hazel,” he said. My name on his tongue surprised me. He had never called me that, not since he retrieved me from the underground cells with the rest of Eric’s followers. I didn’t like the sound of it; it made me cringe. “But you have to try.” He stared at me, his eyes rich with understanding, his brows drawn together, trying to make me see his view. “I’m here to help you.”
Not to ‘reintegrate’ me, the term Heather had so carefully used, but tohelpme.
