Page 70 of The Vixen
Thorne’s face flickers with the uncertainty of a person who’s never had to think for themselves. I’m half tempted to search for a ‘What Would Luna Do’ bracelet wrapped around his wrist.
Pathetic.
“Liberty wants nothing to do with the Dreg, and he should be working regardless. He goes from his room to the library and nowhere in between. Do you understand?”
Aiden is quiet for a moment. I look over to watch the confliction dance in his eyes. He too wears a WWLD bracelet.
“It’s fine.”
All eyes turn to Liberty. She pushes the tray of food away, knocking into a glass of milk that rattles before it steadies. A stream of white slinks beneath the tray, and in true Liberty fashion, she stands without notice or care of the chaos. A baggy green sweater flattens against her chest as she crosses her arms and leaves Thorne to clean up her mess.
Or not.
She walks right past me to a drawer on the other side of the room and retrieves a towel—in the very first place she looks. Even for a virus, the woman is quick to learn her host.
As she cleans the spill, my eyes drift to the tree outside the window. It isn’t until she finishes that I realize my jaw is clenched.
When she goes to take a step in my direction, Thorne grasps her arm.
I tense, my eyes zeroing in on that hand, body leaning forward as if ready to pounce. But Liberty doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t pull away.
She rests a hand over his. “It’s okay… I need this.”
Her voice is so soft, it grates across my ears like cotton dotted with glass. A muscle jumps in my hand while I grow increasingly hot.
Nofuckingway.
Thorne’s face softens. Reluctantly, he nods, and his grasp releases as he addresses Aiden. “Keep a close distance.”
“Of course, sir.”
“So…I heard you want me dead.”
Hands stuffed inside the pocket of Thorne’s enormous coat, Liberty scoffs with a flip of her hair. The movement assaults my nose with a whiff of apples and lye—Liberty with a trace of Thorne.
Part of me wishes Angel could see this, see his wife with another man’s jacket wrapped around her after one fuckingday. There’s little I could say that would pierce Angel’s obsession, but surely the utter deja vu of the leech seeking the arms of yet another misguided soul would be enough to finally,finallysee the truth.
He’d probably just call her asurvivor.
“I want plenty of things for you,” Liberty says. “Most of them involve you screaming and thrashing with some sort of instrument attached to your stupid fucking mouth. None involve you breathing by the end of it.”
“Wow… Graphic.”
“You should read my journal.”
“Am I gonna see Thorne’s name doodled on the cover?”
Her pace slows, eyes narrowed as she turns her head.
Good.
Let’s get this over with.
“What did you just say to me?”
“You looked oddly cozy with his hand on your arm… And I didn’t see any hesitation when he offered his jacket.”
She stops altogether, her body swinging as she juts a finger in my face. I glimpse Aiden twenty or so yards away. He stops and gives me a little wave to tell me we’re all good.
