Page 270 of Cross the Line
“Don’t argue with me,” I snap when his mouth opens, sucking in a breath that draws his brows right over his eyes, darkening them to a pitch black storm when I let him go and point in the direction he needs to run in while I go in the other.
“I don’t know where she is!” Finley screams, her voice is wet with fear, and as I hold her in my sight through the trees, blood pours from her nose and a large gash on her forehead.
He’s going to pay for that. For every drop of blood he’s bled from her.
“You have exactly five seconds,” Presley warns, taking a step closer, the gun in his hand pointing directly at her face.
“I don’t—I don’t?—”
“Four!”
Fuck.
Grabbing the closest stick I can find in the brush around me, I grip it tightly in my hand before I tap my wrist once, waiting for Jayden to tap back in response.
“Where is the whore?” Presley enunciates each word with a purposeful step.
Defiant as ever, Fin clambers to her feet. One arm is wrapped around her waist when she limps back a couple of steps.
“I don’t—” She shakes her head, eyes flitting around her, looking for a way out.
When they land on mine, tears rain down her face with a sob that rattles her entire body.
I don’t know how I do it, but I manage a smile. Giving her a reassuring wink as I hold my finger to my mouth and she takes her focus back to Presley.
“I don’t know where Salem is.”
The upswing of Presley’s free hand cuts through the dry breeze with a whistle that shatters with Finley’s howl.
“Two!” He touches the muzzle between her eyes at the same time as my wrist vibrates.
I charge forward faster than ever. The breath in my lungs frozen solid. My pulse one continuous beat, stabbing through my chest.
My hands grip the stick harder, holding it strongly as it crashesagainst the side of Presley’s head. Followed by the slam of my body to his.
My ears are screaming with the rebounding vibration of gunfire. I can’t scramble off the bastard fast enough to look for Fin. For Jayden.
The one continuous throb, pitching my chest into an endless keen of horror.
“Eli!”
“Eli!”
CHAPTER 80
JAYDEN
It’s said that when a soul splits into different bodies, when they finally reunite, there is a shift in the universe. A collective transformation in the consciousness of self. It’s finding your existence and where you belong.
As Plato put it, when a soul finds its parts, it loses itself in astonishment to the immensity of love and friendship. The intimacy is an all-consuming hold that refuses to let each other out of sight. There is nothing you won’t do to stay together. To be whole. To be home.
Eli became my home the instant I set eyes on him. He made me feel more of myself than I ever had. And since that day, I haven’t let him out of my sight. Not for one fucking second.
Until right now.
The desperation to get to Finley was so overwhelming that I took my eyes off him. And holding one part of your soul while the other fights for its life is an impossible task.
“Eli,” his name sputters from my chest in a choked whisper as he scrambles away from Presley.
