Page 12 of Branded By Shadow
“The one that sounds like you expect walls to move if you grunt at them.”
I stare at her.
She crosses her arms, which does nothing good for my focus. Her chest rises and falls fast beneath her jacket. Fear still has her. Adrenaline too. But she stands there anyway, chin up, eyes bright, trying to stare down a man twice her size because it’s easier than falling apart.
She gets under my skin fast.
Too fast.
She’s younger than me. Bright where I’m worn down. Soft where I’ve gone sharp. I’m thirty-nine, with blood on my hands and ghosts under my skin, and I should have enough honor left to step back.
I don’t.
One look at her in that garden, all fury and fear and loyalty, and something in me locked.
Mine doesn’t feel like a choice.
It feels like a fact.
“You got somewhere safer?” I ask.
“My apartment.”
“Landon knows where you live?”
Her mouth opens.
Closes.
There it is.
“He knows where you work,” I say. “He knows your name. He probably knows your address, your car, your schedule, and every place you’d run if you panicked.”
The color slips from her face.
I hate that.
Doesn’t soften my voice though. Soft lies get people killed. Hard truth keeps them breathing.
“You go home tonight, he comes for you. Maybe alone. Maybe with men. Maybe he waits until you think you’re safe.”
She swallows.
“And here is safe?”
“No. Here is temporary.”
“That is also not comforting.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
Her eyes flash. “You’re very bad at this.”
“At what?”
“Reassuring people.”
I look around the back of the motel. Peeling paint. A rusted dumpster near the fence. Office light glowing around the corner. Two trucks parked closer to the front. One sedan with a cracked windshield near the stairs. Curtains closed in most rooms.
