Page 77 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
That’s wrong enough that it catches in my chest.
“Already?” he asks. “You just had a supply.”
I shrug one shoulder.
“I used most of them.”
He still doesn’t move.
“What’s wrong with you tonight?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
He lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh, but there’s nothing easy in it.
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
For one second I think he might bolt.
Then Elijah comes out of the dark behind him.
There’s no warning. No dramatic pause. One second the dealer is standing there watching me, and the next Elijah’s hand is locked across the back of his throat and shoulder, hauling him backward so violently that his feet leave the ground for half a step before he slams into the side of the car.
He gets one half-formed curse out before Elijah drives him down again, the sound of metal and flesh hitting together cutting through the lot.
I stop where I am and watch it happen, the shock of it running through me so fast it doesn’t have time to settle into one cleanthing. Part of me goes cold. Part of me feels sick. Part of me, and this is the part I don’t want to look at too closely, feels something ugly and immediate uncoil at the sight of his panic.
Good.
The word flashes through me before I can stop it.
Good.
Lucian’s voice reaches me from behind.
“You going back,” he asks, calm as ever, “or are you coming with us?”
I don’t turn.
The dealer is swearing, struggling, trying to wrench free, and Elijah is handling him like he weighs nothing, like he’s barely worth the effort.
“I’m coming,” I say.
Lucian doesn’t praise it. He doesn’t nod like I’ve passed something. He just gets out of the car and moves with me toward the second vehicle while Christian helps force the dealer into the back seat.
The drive to the warehouse feels shorter.
Or maybe my body has just chosen something new to focus on.
When we get there, Elijah drags the dealer out before the car has fully settled. The man is fighting properly now, all reflex and panic, feet slipping on the concrete as he tries to swing back.
“You’re dead,” he spits, blood already at the corner of his mouth. “All of you. You have no idea who the fuck you just grabbed—”
Elijah hits him so hard the rest of it dies in his throat.
The sound of it lands in the open space and stays there.
The dealer staggers and tries to come back with a wild swing that would barely have landed clean on a drunk man, and Elijah answers it with another hit that sends him to one knee.
