Page 42 of Rogue
It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking.
And there’s no way he’ll pick up on my next move because I don’t have any.
Dumb. He’s going to kill you.
I feel a familiar anger fill me, driving away every other fickle, useless emotion that’s made me stupid.
“Like I said, you’re as good as dead.”
Get your ass in gear. Escape.
I shift on my feet, acting nervous. Feeling nervous but not enough to show it. My foot catches in the discarded towel and I stumble backward, my hands wrapping around the arms of the Louis XIV chair as if to stop my fall.
Ignoring thefaites attention!/be carefulsign on the wall behind it—no, it couldn’t be the real deal, right?—I hoist the small, decorative chair, turn in a full swing, and club him in the head.
He didn’t seem surprised in the least, I think as his unconscious form falls to the floor. Jaxson made that far too easy for me. I shrug my shoulders. Stupid is as stupid does.
Crouching, I feel his pulse. Normal. He’ll have a nasty bump. I’m getting tired of knocking him out. Although I wish things had gone down much better.
I hastily dress and pack my bags.
Then I check on him one last time. Stealing precious moments to run a finger across his bruised cheek. Wincing and letting regret grip hold of me. “I never wanted to hurt you, Jaxson,” I mumble. I take a few more seconds to press my lips against his. “If you ever surprise me again,” I promise, “I’m going to let thisthingplay out. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll come to understand the choices I had to make.”
His eyelids blink and I hastily rise to my feet. “Nothing is impossible to a willing heart,” I murmur, before running for the door.
12
Shelby
Guilt clings to me like a crippling cold. I tell myself it’s okay, that one night away from home won’t matter much, that last night Mama seemed stronger and how we are all feeling hopeful the trial treatments she’s begun will do what the chemotherapy couldn’t do.
Still, my overnight stay at the Ranch better be worth the price of my absence from home.
Hayden has been relentless today, demanding we prove what we’ve learned or be cut. Between Francis and myself, it’d been not one but two steps short of a miracle we’d made it. Knives—need I say more? What a disaster. I’m as talented a knife thrower as I am an opera singer. Cover your ears, folks. What a disaster, yet there’s comfort in knowing I didn’t maim anyone this time.
But I can’t allow twenty-seven days of brutal training to go down the toilet because of today. Jesus, I paid the first installment to Johns Hopkinsandlied to Mama, saying I convinced National Insurance to cover the hefty bill. Yeah, cancer is big business and a pretty huge incentive to stick it out at Hayden’s Hell.
So here I am, on my way to the lone she-wolf bedroom on the far side of the Ranch and separated from the other rooms, and as soon as I step inside to pass through the kitchen, I immediately realize the mistake I’ve made.
Sabrina’s in the small kitchen, smoking a cigarette, leaning against the sink in a transparent aquamarine negligee that leaves little to the imagination and sporting this postcoital, just-been-fucked air about her that makes me feel like spinning on my heels and heading straight home.
A sinking realization takes root in the pit of my stomach. Whose bed has she crawled out of for a smoke? But I’m careful to mask my surprise . . . and disbelief.
“Be careful. He’ll break your heart, then trample on it. Men like him always choose duty over pussy. You’ll end up only being in the way.”
Jesus. Can’t a woman slide past her without being harassed? And seriously, Sabrina’s warning me? I raise my eyebrows. “I can’t fathom why you’d warn me about something that’ll never happen,” I reply, not feeling the need to clarify whoheis.
Instead of running, I hold my ground. Brushing past her, I take a glass from the dish strainer beside the sink and fill it with tap water.Especially not after he’s screwed the first woman available.
She takes the half-smoked cancer stick and runs it beneath the faucet, then tosses it into the garbage pail. I stare at the ceiling, waiting for her to slink off. Not wanting to look at her bathing suit–model body and focusing more on her being a nutjob trying to get inside my head. Someone once said, “Comparison is the thief of great joy.” If Jaxson wants a woman like her . . .
Damn that man-whore.
She lets out a high-pitched shrill. “Take my advice or leave it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Then she gyrates out of the room, a vision in aquamarine, leaving me standing by the sink with a water that’s turned too sour to drink.
Once in bed, I toss and turn. My mother lode of personal problems is overshadowed by her warning and my thinking about where Jaxson is right now. Likely between Sabrina’s thighs . . .
Then my mattress sags and I don’t have to wonder anymore.
