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Speaking of which, what exactly happened?
Is it the car you called for me?I want to ask, but I’m too scared of the answer.Is this the car I was supposed to have been riding in? Was this wreck meant for me? Was it supposed to have been my body lying broken on the street next to the driver’s?
But I know the answer. And Marco does too.
He was right and I was an idiot to escape my bodyguards. An idiot who could have died. An idiot who is about to die in the next ‘accident’.
“What are you sorry for? You didn’t cause the crash,” I tell him instead.
“Not about that,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry that I came back.”
“Why are you—?” I catch a whiff of smoke, stronger than before, and the trees sway around me. “Wait.” He stops walking and I jump to the ground, running back to the wreck scene. “I smell smoke. What’s happening? Marco, is that the car you called for me? Did—do you remember the plates?”
He doesn’t answer, which, honestly, tells me all I need to know: It’s the same car. This accident was meant for me. This… I gasp, trying to wrap my mind around what appears more and more to be an assassination attempt. The wreck is on fire, small flames licking at its spilled out, broken pieces.
“Don’t be silly,” Marco says, in that tight-lipped way of someone trying to hide a lie. He reaches me in two strides. “What are the chances that it’s the same car? Sure, it looks similar, but…”
I stumble again and Marco catches me around the waist. “Come on,” he says in this low, gravelly voice. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“No, wait. I need to see this. I need to be sure if it’s that car or not.”
I slip out of his grasp and run to the empty street, towards the burning car. He runs after me, screaming my name, and in his hurry he’s clumsy. He slips and falls, and it gives me time to reach closer to the car before he can catch me.
And, up close, it’s pretty obvious that the car…. The car hasn’t crashed.
It’s exploded.
***
We climb the stairs back up to the motel room and thunder rolls in the distance.
I am crying.
Marco’s lips are tight, and I think I see tears glisten on his eyelashes too, which is ridiculous. Why would he cry?
“It’s going to be morning soon,” he says, locking the door behind him. The heat has finally kicked in, and suddenly I find it unbearable.
“Might as well talk about the weather,” I agree, although technically he talked about the time. Everything seems gray, pointless. Blurry. As if it isn’t real.
“Come here,” his voice says gruffly, sounding much closer than I had thought. His arm comes across my shoulders, heavy. I can’t see, my eyes are too blurry.
“You’re being careful with me again,” I say bitterly.
“Someone should,” he bites out the words and they sound almost as bitter as mine did. What on earth is going on in that gorgeous head of his? I’ll never figure it out. “Why are you crying?” he asks.
“I’m not,” I sniffle.
“I can see that you’re not,” he sneers.
He makes me sit down on the bed next to him and kneels in front of me. He takes off my cap slowly, careful not to touch my hair. I snort through the tears. And to think, I wanted to offer ‘my body’ to him, as if I were the heroine of a vintage Regency romance. He doesn’t even want to touch my hair. What an idiot I am.
I have been warned all my life against men attacking me, men taking advantage of me, men demanding things from me before I’m ready to give them. I have been prepared for these things; I have been trained for these situations.
But no one told me that I would offer stuff to a guy and he would be disgusted.
I should have expected it, shouldn’t I? I do everything backwards, after all.
And to think, I wanted to be normal.
