Page 10 of Leave Me Behind
I wait for him to walk ahead before smiling to myself. He sounded like Jenkins by saying that.I don’t mind you.Those were the first hard-earned, kind words I’d won from my sergeant. Ones I never thought I’d hear from lips as cold as his were.
That’s how I know Bradshaw, deep down, is a kind person too.
We walk around the corner, heading back to the hotel. I think to tell him he doesn’t need to walk me back, but I doubt he’d listen.
“So, Bradshaw, what kind of guy are you really?” I bump his shoulder with mine. The muscles in his neck feather but he steadily walks.
“I’m a devil.”
“A devil?” I echo incredulously.
If he knew what I was capable of he’d think I was a devil too.
“Yeah. I’ve done things no one could fathom. Things I hate myself for.”Okay, ominous much?“How about you? What kind of person are you?”
I think about that. I’ve killed manytargets. Assigned and backed with paper. People I’d never met or knew why I was doing it. I have no clue how many children or brothers or sisters they had. I just followed orders, blindly and with little care. Jenkins always called me his little reaper.
“I’m a reaper,” I say thoughtlessly.
He stops outside the hotel entrance and looks down at me, eyebrows raised. “A reaper, huh? That’s a weird thing for a beautiful young woman to say.” His eyes narrow.
If only he knew. But my life is a sinful secret, my actions nothing but a whisper in the wind.
It still wears on me, though, each kill slowly draining my soul more than the last.
“What do you do for work?” he asks as he brushes his thumb over my cheek.
I take a short breath and shake my head. “I’m in between jobs.” I amtechnicallybetween squads at the moment.
His brows knit in thought, but he pulls me into a hug, running his fingers down my back. I still as his fingers stop mid-way, close to my spine, over the bullet-sized scar that I know is piquing his interest.
“What did you do before?” He pushes. I can hear the gears in his head starting to turn.
My brain short circuits.
“Um, I worked at a library.”
He pushes me an arm’s length away and gives me a distrustful look. “Why are you lying?”
My lungs cease. “I’m not.”
The coldness returns to his eyes, the hard set back to his jaw.
I reciprocate the callousness. “Why does it matter? What doyoudo?”
He doesn’t respond.
“That’s what I thought. Hypocrite.” I attempt to walk around him and head inside to the lobby, but Bradshaw steps between me and the doors.
“Are you not saying what you do for work for the same reason I’m not?” His voice has a new edge to it, like a blade pointed right at me.
I look up at him and meet those scrutinizing eyes. His divine beauty should be illegal.
“What are you talking about?” I say as casually as I can. He studies me with disdain burning in his eyes before nudging me to the brick side of the building. There he leans over me, arms pressed to either side of the wall at my back.
I freeze. I can’t breathe. I can’t speak.
His words are careful. “You aren’tPenelope Gallows,are you?”
