Page 93 of Ravage
It’s like there’s no one else in the room but them right now. All of us are just flies on the wall as she stares up at him and he smiles down at her. His finger curls under her chin and lifts it so she’s looking right at him, and I catch tears sliding down her face.
It’s him.
I don’t know what or how, but he’s the reason she freaked out.
“You’re so weak right now without me, it’s pitiful,” Gordon murmurs with disgust.
Raegan grimaces and then she keels over and vomits at his feet. The scientist sneers and steps back.
“Disgusting. I think we’ll have to start from scratch, if you’re even worth the trouble.”
Kellan’s on his feet again, though his scales are gone, and rushing toward him with a roar. “GET AWAY FROM HER!” He throws his body into a swing aimed square in Gordon’s face.
His fist flies through him and Kell stumbles off balance.
Gordon ignores him and the way Kellan’s body literally fell through him and snatches the back of Raegan’s hair to drag her back up on her knees again to look at him. “You’re dirty and worthless and—”
She spits on him. Rage twists and contorts his face, and my feet move before I can think. Then he shrieks and releases her.
A throwing knife is embedded in his wrist and his other hand grips around it. We all—except Raegan who’s still staring at the ground—look up.
Jackson has an entire host of knives hovering in the air behind him. He flicks his hand forward and they sail down at their targets on their directed paths. Everyone screams and runs for it, Gordon included, as the knives follow their every twist and turn until they find their homes or they make it out the door and Jackson’s eyesight.
He jumps off one of the wooden beams and barely slows himself before he lands next to Raegan.
Jackson and Kellan help her up to her feet. Her face is blank. Empty.
That man abused her on the island. Before Vera’s death? After?
Does it matter?
He is marked for death either way.
I glance over to Dane to read his reaction to all of this. He’s glaring at her, but he’s also not attacking or aiming his gun at her either.
At least there’s that.
“Jackson, where were—” I start, but he cuts me off.
“Safe house. We’ll talk at the safe house.”
It’s a good idea if anyone else is around. We can regroup, check in with the Guild, and figure out what in the actual fuck just happened.
The safe house is a mini version of our Loft hidden in a disgusting building no one would ever think to look twice at.
It’s where I saw Raegan for the first time in five years, sneaking through the back door like a thief in the night.
Now she’s sitting on our couch with her arms wrapped around her legs and a haunted look on her face that’s been there since we left the Guild. My mood borders on murderous the longer I see it.
I should have attacked him sooner. As soon as I realized what that was, I shouldn’t have waited.
That won’t happen next time.
Kellan brings her a cup of water, which she takes with a barely audible ‘thank you,’ as she stares at nothing. Or at least nothing we can see. She doesn’t even move when Kell tries to offer her a warm washcloth and then wipes any remnants of her bile from her face and clothes himself.
I grab some gauze to wrap my shoulder before joining them on the large sectional couch.
Dane’s still staring at her.
