Page 83 of Wild Child
“Well,” Neils drawled. “You aren’t very good at running, are you?”
22
Devin
Every heartbeat that thudded through my body after Ellie slapped me brought me farther from the hazy tunnel of hallucinations. Recollections slipped back in a mad rush, reorienting me in the moment until full consciousness returned.
Ellie.
Mountains.
Kimball.
Neils, the park ranger.
With a blink, I forced myself entirely back to the present.
Neils jumped off the embankment and straightened in front of us. My lips still burned with our kiss as I met his gaze. My heart with her words. They wrapped around me like a soothing balm and the quiet reassurance that everything would be all right. Even if we both died, I'd said it. She said it. I shoved Ellie behind me with new power.
I love you.I’ve always loved you.
Only the gun that an increasingly unstable Neils waved so carelessly could detract my thoughts from their track of utter disbelief. I reached back for Ellie’s hand. It slid in mine, and I gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze.
“So,” Neils drawled. “You two got wrapped up in something, didn’t you? Besides each other,” he tacked on with a tasteless smile.
“So did you," I replied with forced nonchalance.
Neils scoffed.
“Tell me about the drug," I said.
"My drug," he corrected immediately, as if he'd done this before. A flicker of uncertainty followed in his expression like he'd just betrayed too much.
"Yours? Impressive."
He eyed me warily. At first, I couldn’t tell whether he trusted the question or not. His eyes darted around, and I wondered if he thought I was stalling. Did I have someone on the way? Unlikely, considering how desperately we tried to get the bag. We wouldn’t have fought for the pack if we had someone to back us up.
His eyes moved quickly. This man appeared intelligent enough. If he claimed a drug, did that mean he made it? Had his job as a park ranger been a cover? A way to hide his addiction? Maybe he had some sort of hidden place out here in the mountains. People with that kind of evil drive did all kinds of weird things in secret.
Although I didn’t know why, I had a suspicion this guy didn't want to hide anymore. Why else would he correct me and claim it? Pixie dust had flown under the radar for several years now, only popping up here and there.
"I call it pixie dust,” he finally said. “Because it’s so pretty and pink.”
“You made it?”
He shrugged. “Found it. Experimented into it. I’m a chemist, it’s what I do. Whatever you want to call it. It'smine.”
"What is it?"
"It's a miracle.” A wide smile crossed his face. I inched closer to Ellie. “A modern marvel. Not only does it produce a lovely little high to make your day better, but it also gives you energy and a freakish strength for hours after ingestion. Who doesn't need that?”
“Perfect for anyone that you want to make you money in a fight?”
He smiled slowly. “Perfect foranyone.”
“Kimball included.”
A shadow passed over his eyes, like a sun crossing the cloud. “Kimball is now another unfortunate story. If he would’velistenedto me and stopped arguing, we might have worked through this. But he didn’t.” Neils’s lips tightened. “It’s his own fault that I had to kill him.”
