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“What are you doing back here? And what the hell did you do to Cam?” she demanded, keeping her voice low so that she wouldn’t disturb anyone. “I see you in his apartment this morning, and now all of a sudden the guy turns up dead?”
He watched her calmly, as though her emotions couldn’t penetrate the forcefield created by his cool demeanor. When he didn’t answer her, Bunny’s anger spiked. She stepped forward until he put up a hand to stop her coming any closer.
Her eyes fell in contempt, looking at his pale fingers, before jumping back up to his face in a challenge. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
The middle of his brows quirked upwards as he gave her a once-over. “About?”
“About you having something to do with it,” Bunny growled. She wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass her by. She wanted answers, and she wanted them now. There was no logical explanation for some of the things she’d been experiencing, other than she was potentially going—or had already gone—insane. Unfortunately for him, her neighbor dying had gone a long way toward convincing her that this all wasn’t just happening in her head. There’d be no point in calling for security again. She needed to find a way to keep him talking.
In the meantime, he was staring at her. He had at least a good few inches of height on her, meaning that he looked down into her face from his lofty height. His dark eyes weren’t black. She could see that, now that she was only two feet away from him. They were the darkest shade of chocolate brown she had ever seen, though, and he watched her with a kind of cold detachment that made it impossible to see what he was thinking.
“Can you walk and talk?”
The unexpected question caught her off guard. “Excuse me?”
“I have to pick someone up,” the man said, lifting an arm. “I’m really running short on time.” The sleeve of his jacket slipped back, revealing a strange-looking wristwatch that had at least five hands. Bunny angled her head to the side, trying to get a better look at his peculiar timepiece before he let his sleeve fall back over it.
She planted her hands on her hips. “You’re not picking up anyone from this facility,” she told him, a note of finality in her tone. “Visiting hours are over.”
The guy sighed, reaching to pinch the bridge of his nose with his fingers. It gave the impression that Bunny was a headache he would be forced to deal with. Indignation began to flow through her… until the next words fell from his lips.
“Connie really didn’t explain any of this to you, did she?”
It was a bombshell. Bunny felt her jaw slacken, but she kept her mouth closed at the last second. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had shocked her. “You knew my mom?”
He lifted his hand again, and Bunny flinched, expecting him to grab her. A flicker of amusement passed over his stoic features as he took a packet of gum out of his inner coat pocket and popped a piece into his mouth without offering her any. “I was at her funeral, wasn’t I?” he asked, chewing.
That was it. The blasé attitude, the stalking, the murdering of her neighbor. Bunny was done playing. His comment drew her anger like a lightning rod, and she reacted like she was fully charged. Before she knew it, her hands were on the guy’s collar, balls into fists around the thick woolen material. She used the leverage of her slight weight to help her force him backwards, his back slamming against the creamy white linoleum wall of the hallway.
“Hey!” he grunted as his breath was knocked out of him. He held up both his hands, refusing to struggle against her.
But Bunny was beyond being reasonable. Her heart thudded like a drum in her chest, her breathing was ragged, and her mind was already racing way ahead of her.
“You need to tell me what this is all about. Right now.”
“Fine,” he said with maddening nonchalance as he continued to chew his gum. He shrugged his broad shoulders, her grip tight enough on his coat that he took her along for the ride. “What do you wanna know?”
She hadn’t expected it to be that easy to get him to talk. Of course, she had no guarantees that he was going to tell her anything truthful. But she supposed it was worth a shot, right? What did she have to lose, aside from even more credibility and dignity?
The beginning seemed as good a place to start as any. “Who are you?”
The question hung in the air, unanswered. Instead, the man took a moment to breathe. In. Out. In.
Bunny felt her grip starting to tighten with impatience. In three seconds, she was going to shake him until he caved. Three… two…
He leaned towards her, tilting his face down. For a moment, she was horrified to think he might try to kiss her. Or… was she? Her stomach tightened, making her breath catch in her throat as she waited for the impending connection. She glanced down to his lips, pressed her own together as though she could already feel his mouth on hers. No, this wasn’t right. She barely even knew this guy, and what she did know about him wasn’t cause to consider him a romantic prospect. Not really. She began to pull her head back—but then his gaze captured hers and she couldn’t look away.
A story began to unfold in the dark abyss of his eyes, speaking to her of eons spent in a particular kind of servitude. Her own eyes widened involuntarily as she tried to drink in the narrative that passed from his soul to hers for what felt like an eternity, but which in reality was perhaps just the span of a second or two. She saw ghostly outlines of people, the wisps of their souls leaving their bodies to be collected by a tall man in a long dark coat.
The coat she was holding onto. But was she holding it now in anger, or because she felt like she couldn’t trust her reality to spin entirely off its axis?
She released him with a shove that pushed him into the wall, and backed away, a chill coursing through her. She couldn’t deny the gravity of what she’d just seen, but she wasn’t willing to accept it, either.
Bunny tilted up her chin in defiance, her head swimming with doubt. “I don’t believe you.”
The man shrugged casually, flexing his shoulders to push himself off the wall. “Fine by me.”
“You want me to believe you’re some kind of grim reaper?” Bunny asked, point blank.
