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He interrupts me with a string of curses and puts his hand over his mouth. His fingers are shaking badly. His eyes are shut tightly, and he rubs his hand over his face a few times.
He moves to get up, but his legs give out under him, and he falls back on the bed, his head lolling as if he’s about to faint. I quickly put an arm around his chest to keep him from falling. He is so heavy; of course he is. A dude that tall and muscled… I feel his body unresponsive in my arms and suddenly I know that he’s about to go down like a ton of bricks, and I am not strong enough to keep him from hitting the floor, when he suddenly shakes his head and opens his eyes.
Immediately, he pushes my hand away, and sits on the edge of the bed, gasping and swallowing. He lowers his head between his knees, his brow shiny with sweat.
“Marco?”
My hand is still hovering close to him, in case he faints again.
His eyes are huge pools of blue, blinking rapidly as he struggles to clear his vision. Then he looks at the floor and rasps:
“Go.”
“What?” I can’t have heard him right. The lamp on the nightstand is buzzing slightly. The sound is deafening in the sudden silence. “Marco, talk to me, what’s wrong? What do you need?”
“I need you. To go.” He says the words slowly, brokenly.
“I—”
He darts up and heads to the bathroom closet. The room is so small I can’t escape the sounds of him being violently sick in there. Ok, there’s something more going on here than him just having a nightmare. This feels serious, life-threatening. This feels almost like a… like a sickness.
“Marco?” I run to the door, unsure if I’m supposed to be talking to him through the bathroom door, but I hear him spit and choke and fight for breath. “Are you alive in there?”
It was supposed to lighten the mood—if such a thing is possible right now—but he does sound like he’s dying.
“Just freaking go!” he bites out.
“Well…” Well, this is awkward. Also, kind of scary. I was so stupid to think his rudeness was refreshing. It hurts, is what it does. And it’s dangerous as hell. “You are my ride, for one thing,” I try to explain, “and for another you don’t seem to be having a handle on this…”
The tap turns on and the noise interrupts me.
Not that I know what I was going to say anyway.
He throws up some more, the sound barely disguised by the splashing water, and then he opens the door and just stands there, swaying. How can someone look so devastating after having thrown up in a toilet for a full five minutes?
He has taken off his sweater and is just in a white vest, his tan arms round with muscles, his chin stubbly and square. His blue eyes are dimmed with moisture, and his eyelids are puffy and red. He’s splashed water on his face, and his lips are dripping with it, red and swollen.
Pure hatred drips from his stare.
The second time I’ve been stared at like this today: like I am complete and utter scum. But Angel was once part of my life, he’s allowed to hate me if he wants. I think. This one… has absolutely no reason to hate me.
“You are still here,” he observes, his voice icy.
“Did you have some kind of episode in there?” I ask. “Are you sick? Do you want me to try and find some water?” He looks kind of gray. “Are you feeling ok?”
“I will be once you’ve taken off.”
He knows very well that I have nowhere to go. Is he honestly going to kick me out in the middle of nowhere? Is he the kind of person who would do something like that? I really, honestly have no idea.
The seriousness of my situation dawns on me all over again and I get covered in shivers.
“Stop yelling at me,” I say as calmly as I can, but my voice is shaking. “I am just…”
“Stupid,” he completes my sentence for me.
“What?” The room takes a dip to the left, and I lean my shoulder against the wall discreetly, so that he can’t see that I almost faceplanted there.
“You are the stupidest person on the planet, you know that, Olivia? Who in their right mind escapes from their ten bodyguards?”
