Page 2 of Save Me
“Good girl,” he says, and there’s a grudging respect in his voice. A nod to the survival instinct we share, carved from the same unforgiving stone.
Thayer and Harry rush into the room then, looking as battered as Quen and Callum. “What happened to you four?” I ask. “I mean after the Vipers?”
“Adam,” Callum growls, glaring at Aaron, who gives him a smirk before he turns his gaze back to me, eyes full of pride.
I’m not sure if I want his approval, but it steadies me just the same. I swallow hard and try to master the trembling in my limbs.
“You good?” Harry asks, his voice low and cautious as he watches me with hawk-like intensity after taking in the dead man slumped on the floor.
“Yeah,” I lie. “I’m fucking fantastic.” My attempt at bravado falls flat, but what else is there to do other than pretend?
It’s not the first time I’ve disassociated, and it won’t be the last, either.
They don’t push it. They understand the need for fronts, for masks that hide our deepest fears from those who would exploit them.
“Adam still alive?” Aaron snorts as he goes behind his desk and pulls out a bottle of scotch from his drawer, uncapping it and taking a deep gulp. He passes it to Cal who does the same.
“Yeah,” Harry says. “That guy is a monster.”
“You passed.”
“Passed?” Quen snarls.
“The test. You didn’t let Adam stop you from getting to Vogue. That means you will run into death to save her. You passed.”
“Fuck you,” Callum growls and takes another swig from the bottle before he passes it to Quen.
“You’re in my daughter’s life. I needed to know you had it in you.”
“Well, there’s not much we can say about that, then, is there?” Thayer asks, taking the bottle from Quen.
“We need to clean this up,” I blurt out.
“We’ll take care of it,” Quen says grimly, turning back to Bigsy as he snaps the pistol chamber back into place as if he’sdone it a million times. He aims it at the body and fires off a shot which penetrates the dead body as we all stare at it.
The kill shot.
The one that would’ve burst my brains from the inside out if Aaron hadn’t connected when he did.
My dad saved me.
Pressing my lips together, I turn to him and launch myself in his direction, wrapping my arms around him as tightly as I can. For a moment, he’s caught off guard, but then his arms envelop me, strong and unyielding.
“Thank you,” I say, muffled against his shirt. “You saved me.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Aaron replies, his voice gravelly. “This is just the beginning.”
I pull back to look at him, uncertainty gnawing at my insides. The beginning of what? But the question dies on my tongue because his eyes tell me everything—I’m now irrevocably part of his world, and there is no going back. Not now. Not ever.
2
VOGUE
Somehow time has moved along.Minutes, hours, who knows? My body shuts down after the guys start to ‘clean up’ Bigsy’s corpse.
At some point, Thayer takes me outside and gets me into my dad’s SUV, driving me home while the others stay behind.
The city flashes by, turning from heavy traffic to barely anything as we near the sleepy town of Crestmont where the dark underbelly thrives.
