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“Fine,” Malice growls, clearly in charge of this little interrogation. “So why did you come here now?”
Memories flicker through my head, and I shift my weight from one foot to the other as I remember running down that alley, ducking around dumpsters and pieces of trash as the unknown man pursued me.
“There was a man,” I tell them, twisting my hands together. “I was waiting for the bus home from school, and he was there. Sort of hanging back in the shadows. It creeped me out, so I decided to call for a ride instead. But before the car arrived, he started coming toward me. I ran, and then… then he started following me. Chasing me down the street.”
“What thefuck?” Malice explodes. He lashes out, slamming his fist into the wall so hard it makes me jump. “You could have led him right to us.”
“Hey. Chill out, Mal,” Ransom cuts in.
“No, I didn’t. I got away from him before I came here,” I promise, glancing between the two of them.
“See?” Ransom holds out a hand as if to saytold you so. “And anyway, we don’t know for sure if it was anything to do with Nikolai. Plus, she came right to us to tell us what happened.” He looks at me and gives me a little nod, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a smile. “You did good, angel.”
Malice huffs, and he still looks like he wants to hit something—or someone—but he backs off.
“Find out what she knows,” he mutters to Victor, then stalks back into the living room to grab his pants and tug them back on.
Victor and Ransom usher me into the living room too, and I give Victor my full attention, turning my back to where Malice is getting dressed. It feels like a bad idea, like turning your back to an apex predator or a monster that might eat you, but it’s somehow safer than watching him.
“Where were you when you noticed this guy?” Victor asks.
His voice is quiet and even, almost as low as it was when he was whispering to me in the hallway, but his controlled demeanor makes it easier to focus on his words and organize my thoughts as I start to answer.
“I was at the bus stop on the south side of campus,” I say, giving him the nearest cross streets.
He asks me several questions in rapid-fire, and I answer every single one, giving him as much information as I remember. When I finally finish speaking, he nods.
“I’ll hack the security footage from the area and figure out who this man is,” he tells me. “We need to find out if it’s a random occurrence, or if someone is tailing you for a specific reason.”
“Okay,” I say, plucking nervously at a loose thread on my shirt.
I have a sudden stab of fear that now that I’ve told them someone might be after me, they won’t let me leave their home, but then Malice walks back into view.
“We’ll let you know what we find out,” he grunts.
“I’ll take you home,” Ransom offers.
I’m not sure I want to take him up on that. The last time I got into a car with one of them it ended… confusingly. But it’s late, and I don’t know if someone else is waiting to stalk me or chase me through the streets, so I also don’t want to say no.
Malice glares at me once more and then stalks off, heading for another part of this strange, large building they live in. He never put a shirt on, and it’s hard not to notice his naked, tattooed back on display as he goes, but I wrench my eyes away.
Victor doesn’t even look at me again as he starts toward the stairs that lead from the living room to an upper floor, probably planning to get to work on hunting down whoever was following me.
That leaves me and Ransom alone, and I glance nervously at the handsome man with the tousled brown hair and the easy smile.
“Come on,” he says, gesturing for me to follow him.
He leads me out of the living room and into a darkened garage, flipping on a light and striding confidently toward…
Oh fuck.
I swallow hard. It’s a motorcycle.
My footsteps slow, and Ransom chuckles as he notices, turning to look back at me over his shoulder. “Have you ever ridden one before?”
I shake my head in answer. “No. Never.”
He grins, and there’s something sexy and almost flirtatious about it. “Don’t worry, angel. I’ll take good care of you.”
