Page 20 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

“Could’ve been worse.”

“How?”

“I could’ve agreed with him.”

He laughs under his breath. “You think she’s really one of them?”

I nod. “Oh yeah.”

“And you think she’s dangerous?”

I glance back at the table, where my father now looks like he’s trying to drink away the shape of his own reflection.

“Not yet,” I say. “But they’re going to make her dangerous if they keep treating her like a bomb.”

Elias looks at me, quiet for a second.

“What’re you gonna do?”

I stare at the cracked floorboards beneath us.

“I’m gonna find her first.”

9

KENDALL

The bus ride to the hospital is short, but my nerves make it feel like I’m crawling there in reverse. Every bump in the road rattles through my bones, and I swear the fluorescent lights overhead are humming loud enough to crack my skull open.

I’m not okay.

I know it. My body knows it. My senses are still too sharp. Every person on the bus smells like sweat and fabric softener and old coffee. I can hear the tap-tap-tap of some guy’s phone screen across the aisle like he’s drumming right on my spine.

I haven’t told anyone what happened last night.

Not Adora. Not Mom. Not Stefan, and he wasright therein my kitchen this morning, looking at me like I was some cracked vase he didn’t know how to hold without bleeding.

But I need answers. Adora might not be ready to talk, butI am. Or at least I’m desperate enough to try.

I step off the bus two blocks from the hospital. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s instinct. Maybe it’s the itch under my skin that hasn’t stopped crawling since last night. But something makes me walk.

That’s when I see him. A flicker in the alley to my left.

Familiar. Broad shoulders. That stupid silver streak in his hair.

Dad.

I freeze mid-step, my body pulsating with the drum of blood and my heart. He doesn’t look back. Just moves deeper into the shadows like he wants me to follow.

Hell if I don’t.

I quickly glance over my shoulder once, then cut across the street, slipping into the alley like I’m sliding into someone else’s story.

It smells like garbage and rain but as I try to push down the overwhelming smells, I realize that he’s not in the alley anymore.

But I catch movement up ahead, where the alley cuts beneath the bridge. The underpass is low and shadowy, hidden from the street, just a dark mouth yawning beneath the city.

I hesitate at the edge.

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