Page 58 of The Player
I heard Will’s steps behind me as I charged up the stairs to the landing. Once there, I sprinted down to Kate’s front door.
Kate always kept a spare key under a plant pot by the door, and I lifted it up, taking the key from underneath.
“Jesus, your sister has the worst security,” Will scolded. “That changes. Today.”
“I totally agree.” I turned my back to unlock the door. “But at least we can get in without breaking the door down.”
“Did you have a key on you that night?” he asked, and pure dread and fear flooded through my system, making me feel sick to my stomach.
“No. But he knows where we live. He knows everything about us.”
Is he on his way here now?
Or worse than that, is he behind this door?
I faltered, taking a step back, leaving the door unlocked, feeling too scared to open it to find out. Will let his head fall back as he gave a despondent sigh.
“I knew we should’ve gone to The Sanctuary,” he said. “We’d be safer there. In fact, I think we should just go there now.” Then, with determination on his face, he added, “I’m not running from that fucker again. I want to go back and track him down. I’ll scour the fucking forest if I have to. He won’t get away with what he’s done.”
“I’m not going anywhere else,” I argued. “Especially not there. We’re no safer there than we are here. That’s where we were taken, remember?” Just the thought of leaving here made me tetchy and nervous.
“Like I could forget,” he shot back, and from the way he gritted his teeth, his jaw flexing, I could tell he was antsy. “The first thing I need to do is burn that fucking maze to the ground.”
I sighed, the heaviness from the trauma I’d been thrust into today grew harder to bear with each passing second.
“I know you want to fight back. It’s in your nature. But please, just give me tonight. One night. That’s all I ask. Tomorrow, you can burn the fucking forest to the ground for all I care, but tonight, I just want to stay here. Please.”
“Fine.” He dropped his head, warring with the need to fight and the desire to please me. Then he stared up at me from underneath his long lashes. “But it’d make me feel better knowing there were four other men watching you. Protecting you.”
“I don’t want that.” I took a step closer to him, urging him to listen and really hear me. “I only wantyou. Please, Will. I know this place isn’t ideal, but where is? At this moment in time, this is where I feel the safest, and you are the only person I want to be with. No one else.”
“But Shelley would be there. She’s family,” he pointed out, trying to hang onto the last withered shreds of his argument.
“Exactly.” I felt my body tense at the thought of seeing her. “Do you think I can look her in the eye knowing what happened to our dad today?”
He baulked as I choked on my words, my eyes fixed on the floor. I couldn’t look at him, so I steeled myself and opened the apartment door, avoiding his penetrative stare as I stepped inside.
“She has to know some time,” he said quietly behind me.
“But not today,” I replied, walking into the apartment and throwing the key into the bowl on the coffee table.
The apartment smelt musty. The plants Kate had asked me to water were either brown and wilting or completely dead. But apart from that, everything was as I’d left it the night before the masked ball. Nothing had been touched. At least, that’s how it appeared at first glance. But we knew not to take things at face value.
“Stay here,” Will announced as we stood in the doorway to the kitchen, his eyes scanning everywhere, listening, assessing. “I want to check every room before we go any further.”
The apartment was tiny, but I wasn’t happy to let him walk away. He wasn’t going anywhere without me.
“No, I’m not staying here. I’ll come with you.”
I stalked over to the kitchen drawer, yanked it open and pulled a knife out, holding it up to show him I meant what I said.
He didn’t argue, instead he marched out of the kitchen, heading towards the bedroom. When he was satisfied it was empty, he moved to the bathroom, forcing his way in like a cop from a TV show, bustling into the room like he expected to find the Taskmaster standing in the middle of it waiting for him. And as he cleared each room, he kept a firm hold of my hand, comforting me, touching me, making me feel safer just from him being close to me. He wanted to know I was there as much as I wanted him to be there.
Once he was satisfied we were okay, he stalked back into the living room and sat down heavily on the sofa, his head hanging low as he rested his elbows on his knees.
“So, what now?” he asked, lifting his head slightly to peer up at me.
“Now?” I sat on the edge of the sofa next to him. “Now you tell me exactly what happened in that room today, with my dad.”
