Page 16 of Hunted Mate
He succeeds.
I collapse to the ground from the blow, which lands on the back of my neck.
He reaches for me, but he doesn’t grab me. I don’t know why. Maybe the sky and the ground betrayed him too. I feel a hot spray of something across my cheek, something that tastes like copper when I lick my lips.
I hear the sound of flesh tearing. I wish I didn’t know that sound, but I do. All too intimately. Someone is being ripped apart nearby. They’re screaming and complaining about it, and I’m not being attacked anymore, so I’m hoping it’s the same person I hit, and who hit me.
Then there’s quiet. It doesn’t take long for someone to stop screaming. Killing happens faster than anybody realizes. Life feels like it’s going to go on forever, and then it just sort of stops and that’s it, and the sky is on the side.
A bigger, but softer hand reaches for me, tries to guide me up from the ground.
“Come here, Callie.”
I recognize the voice.
“Gray!”
Something is tickling in my head. I wanted to talk to Gray about something, but I cannot for the fucking life of me remember what, or why. Was it something about work? Maybe. Would have to be.
“I’m taking you home,” he says.
“There was a man,” I say.
“Don’t worry. There’s not one anymore.”
I find that satisfying.
My mind is so hazy. Ridiculously so. Gray works for my company. But he’s also a bad person, I think? No. Yes? Wait. No. Yes? And also the cops are looking for him. But also he just saved me from someone who was trying to do terrible things to me.
Being drunk makes thinking difficult, so I stop bothering.
“I hate you,” I say. “But I think you saved my life, so I guess…”
“Come on,” he says. “I’m taking you home.”
He gets me into the front seat of a vehicle. A van, I think? Weird. I expected him to be a sedan man. Anyway. I’m in a van now, and I’m drunk. And he’s putting the seatbelt on me, which I can do for myself, or at least I used to be able to do that. My fingers feel like they’re someone else’s fingers. Oh, wait. They are. They’re his. That explains a lot, actually.
“You’re a cute drunk,” he says.
“You’re a fucking asshole, but I can’t remember why,” I reply. He’s a bad man. He did a bad thing. But there was another man, and he did another bad thing, and there’s not really any way to find good men. So I wonder if everybody just has bad men, but they either don’t know it, or they do. My dad was a good man, but he died.
“Keep your head up,” he says, reaching over, two fingers under my chin, and tipping my head back against the headrest. I didn’t even realize my head was dropping forward. I thought my lap was just really cool.
The world is going around and around, and suddenly I’m home. Not sure how that happened.
Gray helps me into my house. He fishes my keys out of my purse and he unlocks the door and he pours me indoors. My hands and knees find the floor with unerring accuracy.
“Hey, come here,” he says, urging me up. “I’m going to make some coffee. You need to sober up a little before I leave you alone. I’m not sure you’re safe.”
“I’mnot sureyou’resafe,” I echo in response.
He seats me on a couch and goes to the kitchen to start making my beverage. I don’t need coffee. I need answers. I reach for my laptop, half open on the table in front of me. I pick it up, but it stays on the table. I pick it up. Wait. What am I doing?
I put it down on the floor.
Gray comes back. Does he want to talk to me about possibly upping the marketing budget? My brain keeps switching between thinking I am at work and knowing that I am at home.
“Drink this,” he says, putting a cup of dense black liquid in front of me. It looks and smells like the void.
