Page 129 of Of Flesh & Bone

I'm laughing along with them now."Thanks, guys."

CHAPTER 42

Adam

Something is different.We just walked into our bedroom and....something's wrong. Eve must sense it too because, she pauses mid-way to the bathroom and looks around.Our room here is much smaller than the one at Eden House and it's easy to see everything from any point in the room.It's a scent.Not the burned motor oil smell from whatever Vaughn massacred in the kitchen but, something else.Something musky.Leather and musk.Eve turns toward her desk and asks, "Did you move my picture?"

Following her line of sight, I see the spot where the picture of her and the two roommates used to sit.It's gone.A quick scan shows that it's nowhere in the room.Her picture and my canvas.No one at Eden House had any idea what I was talking about when I asked if they'd moved it and more than one of them gagged when I asked about my Purity Painting.I never said what it is.I just described the look of it, and they made deductions.

Now Eve's picture is missing and there is a strange scent in the air.Someone was here.Should I tell her about the canvas now?She'll want to know why I didn't tell her earlier."Do you want me to ask your roommates if they took it?"

"No.I'll ask.Maybe they just wanted to look at it.They do have their own copy though so I don't know why they would."Eve walks out of the room and returns a couple of minutes later."They don't know what happened to it."She looks pensive, as though she's trying to remember something.She thinks she may have done something with it and forgot about it.I know that she didn't.Someone was here and the same someone was in our room at Eden house.

"I think it was taken.My Purity Painting was taken too."Eve gives me a look of annoyance at the name of the painting before realizing what I'm telling her.

"Wait, someone took the blood canvas?"

"Yeah.A couple days ago.I asked the guys, and no one knows anything about it."I watch her face closely, knowing that she'll try to mask any fear or concern out of habit.

"Why didn't you tell me it was taken?"

"I knew you didn't take it.I wanted to ask around to be sure it was really missing."The half truth feels like a lie, but I don't want her to know that I intentionally kept it from her.There would be punishment if she had kept something like this from me.

"Do you think it was him?"

"Who?"

"Paul Hastings.Do you think he found me?"

Fuuuuuck.I should've seen this coming.Of course, she would think it's the guy who attacked her and is now missing.She has no idea that Paul Hastings won't be bothering anyone ever again.She's been doing so great and now she's going to be looking over her shoulder for that sack of shit.I, on the other hand, know that it wasn't Paul.So, who was it?They were in Eve's room.They touched her things.Rage coils in my chest like a living thing unfurling out into my limbs and demanding action.

"Adam?"

Eve's voice drags me from my rage spiral.I clear my throat."It wasn't Paul."

Eve looks at me with unguarded confusion.I can't let her live in fear of this man.We didn't want her to live in fear of him coming after her.That's why we did what we did.

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