Page 69 of Ramshackle
“No one needs you. It would be better for you to be alone.”
“Hey…”
Something touches me, and I startle back to the present. Dane squeezes my hand. “Are you okay? We can come back another time if you’re not up for this so soon.” His face is shadowed bythe hoodie he’s wearing, but I’m close enough to see it when he looks directly at me. His annoyance is long gone and replaced with worry while he waits for my answer.
I glance at Aiden, who’s watching me with similar attention, his eyes dark and chilling.
“I’m fine,” I mumble, tugging my hand free and shoving both under the table. I didn’t think they would notice me getting lost in my head for a second, but now they’re both on high alert as they inspect my every move and word. It’s been a week since I woke up. Almost two since they rescued me.
In some ways, a lot of time has passed, and in others, none at all.
It took me two years to redefine what normal meant to me and how to get there after getting off the island. I’m already doing a million times better this time around, but it still creeps up on me in moments of weakness.
“Beautiful, come here.”
I snap my head over to Kellan. His hand beckons me over to him and the girl. This isn’t part of the plan. What is he…?
“Stop acting like you’re shy and get your sexy ass over here.”
Oh.
Warmth floods my chest at his public claim. I stand without thinking, joining him at his side wordlessly while his arm wraps possessively around my waist.
“Here she is. Michelle, this is my girl, Raegan. Raegan, this is Michelle. She’s offered to let us borrow her ID badge so we can”—he bends down to murmur suggestively in my ear, though it’s still loud enough for anyone around us to hear—“do what we wanted in the library.”
The heat creeps up my neck to my face. Wait.What?
Kellan chuckles and nips my ear with his teeth.
The girl, Michelle, grins and waves her badge between her fingers. “Good luck with your bet. The librarians are sticklers forthat, so your buddies will need to be good at distracting them. You’re too tall to hide,” she adds while looking Kell up and down.
His fingers scissor closed over her badge. “Sounds like a good challenge.”
I point to the last island I can remember on the screen. “…and that one.”
Dane zooms in close enough to see the general landscape of the island and its buildings, then hits a bunch of keys until I hear the printer along the wall starting up again. He zooms in and out, getting whatever pre-planned shots he needs up close and from a distance so we can see the other islands nearby.
Kellan shifts behind me, yanking my hips back against him as his beard scratches across the line between my neck and shoulder. “Now that’s done, how about you and I take up that challenge between the shelves?” he drawls seductively.
Fuck, I love how resonant his voice is. It’s so low that hearing it feels like he’s stroking some deep part of me. If I were a feline, I’d be purring.
I lean my head to the side, granting him more access as I shudder with pleasure. “Kell…we can’t…” I whisper, though it doesn’t sound convincing at all. But Idomean it. Aiden and Jackson are patrolling the library so we can get the information and leave as soon as possible. The longer we’re here, the more in danger we are.
Dane’s chair whips back, somehow managing to roll over Kellan’s foot before it thuds back to the floor. Kellan doesn’t flinch, but he does stop what he’s doing to aim his taunting chuckle at Dane. “We won’t be long, Rapunzel.”
“Vera’s probably on her way here now with a squad of GE agents. Unless you want to be caught with your pants down, we need to get Aiden and Jack and get out of here,” Dane bites out.
I pull away from Kellan. “He’s right. Now’s not the time.” He tries to grab me as I keep stepping back from him. “I’ll go find the other two and bring them back here. You guys collect the papers off the printer and stay put.”
I hurry out of the computer room before Kellan can try to stop me. He’ll have to stay behind to make sure no one sneaks up on Dane. If I had my phone on me, I could have tried calling them, but that’s been lower on my priority list. Maybe I should bump it up if we’ll be doing outings like this again.
When jogging gets me yelled at by a librarian, I drop it down to a fast walk as I peer down each of the aisles to look for them. The first set of aisles doesn’t have either one of them, so I move upstairs to the next few sections. “Jack! Aiden!” I call out in a harsh whisper that still garnishes glares from others.
I huff when I reach the back corner with no sign of them. Why is this library so big?
I'm turning back the way I came when I’m suddenly shoved forward. My hands catch me before I land face-first on the rough carpet. I push to flip myself onto my back and face my attacker. My gift sparks instantly, shooting to my hands like an activated line of electricity as I prepare to eliminate the enemy.
Vera lands over me, straddling me with a knife aimed at my abdomen. “Touch me, and I’ll gut you before you can finish.”
