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And if that was the case, why?
Hmm. There was so more to this girl than I’d thought, a pleasant surprise.
Giselle’s voice came out low, “What do you want now? If this is about the cross, I mean it. I don’t want it back.” She went to the desk, leaning on it, bending her head as she closed her eyes. I wondered if she was reliving that night and whatever horrors it held.
I reached into my pocket, pulling it out. Slowly, I went over to her, and I set the cross near her hands, careful not to touch her. She didn’t have a problem touching me last night, but I supposed, with her wearing a jacket and gloves, we didn’t really do much touching to begin with.
Standing beside her, I spoke, “I didn’t come here just to give this back to you.” My voice came out low, lower than I intended it to, and she turned around to glare at me. We stood a foot apart, much like we had in the forest last night, but unlike the forest, things tended to hit a little differently in the light of day.
Such as her eyelashes. I didn’t notice them last night, or at the party before, but here, standing so close to her, I could see how thick they were, how they were darker than her blond hair. I could see more than just brown in her eyes; when the sunlight hit their depths, they looked more amber than chocolate.
Giselle didn’t try to tell me to take the cross back. She couldn’t look away from me, it seemed. Holding my stare, she said, “Then why are you here, Ezekiel?” She would not call me Zek, nor would she call me Father Ezekiel, and yet the name still sounded mesmerizing coming from those lips.
“Two men came to my church today. They were looking for a young, pretty girl with blond hair.”
“So, naturally, you thought of me?”
Her comeback made me smile, if only for a moment. I leaned closer to her, well aware that she leaned backward—so much so that her backside nearly crawled onto the desk. It was more than obvious she didn’t want me touching her.
I lifted a hand, reaching around her, to the clip holding up her hair. I heard her inhale sharply, perhaps at my nearness, or perhaps at what I was doing. Once the clip was out of her hair, it fell past her shoulders, its lengths only a little wavy.
“You should wear your hair down more often,” I whispered. I leaned even closer, my lips near her ear, but not touching her. I could sense her boundaries, so I gave her space… just the bare minimum. “And when you run from somewhere with blood on your hands, make sure there are no witnesses.”
Giselle had looked away from me before, but right then, her head whipped around, and she met my eyes. It sounded as though she was having trouble catching her breath, and I held that stare, refusing to move away.
I was not touching her, but I was as close as I could possibly be to her without doing so.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she settled with saying.
“Mm-hmm. If you want to perpetuate that lie, I suggest you try harder. They’ve found you, Giselle, and it’s only a matter of time before more come for you. Who is Atlas, exactly? The leader of those thugs?”
“They mentioned Atlas?” She didn’t sound worried, but then again, she might’ve been too distracted by how close I was to her.Giselle didn’t quite sound like herself just then.
“They did,” I told her. I drew away from her ear, looking at her. Really looking at her. She was a petite girl, though you could see the muscles in her arms. Shorter than me by damn near a foot. The face she had told me it was far too easy for this girl to get herself into trouble. Sometimes being pretty was a gift; other times it was nothing but a curse.
She didn’t say anything for a while. Still with her backside halfway up on the desk, she had finally gotten her breathing under control. That said, she did not touch me, did not push me to get away from her. She was almost a completely different girl than she’d been last night. A night and day difference, pun aside.
“Atlas leads the Greenback Serpents. They gave my father a lot of trouble back home,” she explained. “They’d sabotage his warehouses, try to turn his men, get in on the money. They’re a street gang wanting to play war.”
“And your father never tried to get rid of this Atlas?”
Giselle turned those dark eyes to me. “He tried. Oh, he tried, but Atlas is smart. His men are loyal. No one my father has ever caught was willing to give him up. Anyone who was unlucky enough to find themselves at the end of my father’s gun gave their lives for him. Even after all this time, we don’t know who Atlas is.”
I was not a man that helped someone who didn’t want to be helped, but as I stood there, staring into the depths of her eyes, I couldn’t help but feel the pull. I wanted to help her, to keep her safe. I imagined it’s what Zander felt. There was something about her, something invisible, that pulled you in and refused to let go.
Perhaps Giselle was not a lamb thrown into the den full of lions. Perhaps she was nothing more than a wolf in disguise, tricking the lions to come close, and one by one, taking them down.
There were worse ways to go.
“You don’t have to worry about those two sniffing around anymore, but others will come,” I told her, my gaze dropping away from her stare and landing somewhere it shouldn’t: her mouth. “Take the cross back, Giselle. Maybe it will help keep you safe. Your old priest would’ve wanted you to have it, not me.” Never before had pulling myself away from someone been so hard… but, then again, never before had I wanted to remain so close to someone.
Something invisible, indeed. Something impossibly strong.
I said not another word as I turned away from her, heading to the door. I’d accomplished what I’d come here for; there was no use to stay. No reason to. If I lingered, certain tempting thoughts would remain, and if I did not try to fight them off, what kind of priest was I? What kind of man?
I made it to the door, my hand hovering above the knob. Without a doubt, I knew I’d find Zander standing just outside, eagerly waiting for my departure so he could have Giselle alone. Who could blame him for that? The girl had obviously been through so much, and in Cypress, she’d go through a lot more. She would need someone at her side.
Maybe more than one someone.
