I feel myself flushing, but he tips my chin up, noticing.
“I don’t care, Ella,” he says, like he really doesn’t. “As long as I can eat you in my house, too.”
I blush harder, and I know my face is the shade of a tomato, but he pulls me in by the throat and kisses me, hard, right on the lips.
My heart flutters a little, and not for the first time, I wonder what the fuck I’m doing with this dangerous boy.
Chapter Ten
A little over two weeks after I meet Ella, and night comes too fast. I dropped her off at her trailer after spending the day and the previous night together, and this time, like when I showed up at dawn a week ago, there was a beat up Saturn in the driveway, parked at a terrible angle.
“Do you want me to come in?” I’d asked her.
She’d looked as if she might faint, shaking her head and jumping out of the car.
I shouldn’t have asked. I should’ve just walked in.
I don’t know enough about her. I don’t know what her mom does. I don’t know why she’s always hungry—or why she was always hungry. She’s not anymore. She wouldn’t let me carry the groceries inside for her, but she staggered under their weight up to her front porch, just as she’s done every few days I’ve taken her back here. She doesn’t want to miss her time at The Ark. She doesn’t want to tell me much about her mom. Her life.
She’s from West Virginia. Doesn’t know her father. She likes really rough sex and enjoys leaving my house covered in bruises. She has a thing for watching the moon from the bay windows of my bedroom.
That’s about all I know about her, despite all of our time together.
She can keep her secrets.
I guess that’s for the best, because Ria is still in my soundproof basement and they don’t know about each other. Ella is my release; since the last time, on New Year’s Day, I haven’t had Father Tomas over. My lacerations are healing.
My mind, however…that’s another story.
When I get home, I drown myself in cannabis oil. Council went terrible last night, and my father is still alive. Lucifer still acts like he hates me.
I kind of hate him, too. We haven’t discussed his antics from New Year’s Eve. He hasn’t said a word about Pammie since then, either. Whatever. Fuck it.
Ez, Atlas and Cain asked me to head to the dragstrip. I didn’t go. It’s no fun anyway, when my car crushes theirs every time.
I don’t know if I trust them either and I don’t know why.
I’m becoming paranoid with Ria in my house. I don’t trust anyone.
And I definitely don’t trust Sid Malikov when I find her outside of my front door close to midnight.
“Where’s Luce?” I ask her by way of greeting, my eyes flicking beyond her as if I’ll see him sauntering up the porch steps. I know there are guards all around our homes; I know that if Sid thinks she snuck out without being noticed, she’s got another thing coming.
She’s got her arms wrapped around her frail body—and it is frail, I realize as I scrutinize her under the lights from the foyer at my back—and she’s shivering. It’s cold outside, but she’s got on a tight hoodie, black pants and her usual combat boots. Her hair is kind of oily, tucked behind her ears, and her face is pale. More than pale, it’s just…colorless. Almost ashen. Whatever spark I’d found in her again after we killed Pammie, it’s gone.
“He’s asleep,” she says in a way that tells me not to ask any more questions about him.
“Why are you here, Sid?” I ask her, blowing out a breath. I still haven’t invited her in. I want to be alone.
Sid glances down at her feet. “I need to talk to you.”
My first instinct is to say no shit, but I bite my tongue as her silver eyes meet mine. She’s got dark shadows beneath them, and her face looks…gaunt. Something is wrong with her.
Something is wrong with Sid.
My heart seems to freeze in my chest. What did Lucifer do?
I step back, relenting. “Okay.”
She walks past me, stepping further into the house, her footsteps echoing on the hardwood.
I close and lock the door and quickly turn around, following after her. There are places in my house she can’t go, and besides that, she’s kind of freaking me out.
“What’s going on?” I ask her casually as she barges into the kitchen, yanking open the fridge. She pulls out cranberry juice—I use it for my pre-workout supplement—and drinks straight from the bottle.
“Uh,” I say, leaning against the kitchen island as I watch her, “that’s probably not what you want.”
She glares at me over the top of the bottle as I grab the vape I’d been loading before she interrupted me. I inhale, then exhale a cloud of smoke, obscuring my view of her for a moment.
And when the smoke clears, I remember.
I haven’t seen her drink since her and Luce got married. She didn’t even drink then, at the little celebration we had afterward. She didn’t drink when I tossed back a shot before we left Liber to go to Pammie’s hideaway.
She screws the cap on the juice, tosses it back into the fridge. I catch sight of the scar on her palm as she shuts the fridge door and folds her arms, then leans back against the counter, eyes on me.
I take another pull on the vape, then set it down on the island. I clasp my hands together, trying to focus on her as I hop on the bar stool. On what she could possibly be here for.
“Um,” I say, when she doesn’t speak, “why didn’t your man notice you snuck out?”
Her eyes narrow into silver slits, and I feel a chill slide down my spine. I’m not scared of her. Not at all. But she’s here at midnight, and Lucifer isn’t. Something isn’t adding up here
“He’s asleep. I told you.”
“And he didn’t wake up when you…left?”
She shakes her head. “I haven’t been sleeping well. He’s used to it.”
I grip the edge of the island, trying to keep myself upright, blinking past my high and my exhaustion. I’d like nothing more than to sink into the couch at my back in the living room, but I tell myself I need to focus.
Is she having regrets, about what we did? I haven’t slept well either since Pammie, but it has nothing to do with the hammer that was covered in her brain matter after we were done. Before we burnt that place to the fucking ground. Even with Ella as a nice distraction, I still can’t get my father’s sins out of my head.
And Malachi has been back in there, too.
Brooklin.
Jeremiah bleeding out in that smoke-filled warehouse.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “But doesn’t he like, track you? GPS?” I mean, it’s not the end of the world if he finds out she’s here. But…he might try to punch me or something, and I don’t want to deal with his bullshit this late.
“I don’t have a microchip,” she counters, but in a way that suggests she wouldn’t be surprised if she did have one. “I left my phone at the house.”
I wink at her. “Smart,” I say, pointing her way.
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah,” she mutters, glancing at the floor. “He’s something else.” She whispers those last words mostly to herself.