Page 67 of Breakaway
"What do you–" I don't finish asking my question before Isha goes limp.
Her body crumples to the ground in front of me. She pushes the door to the parking garage out, holding it open. Her shadows shift and sway for a couple of seconds, long enough for my eyes to go wide and my hand to go to my mouth. By the time they've pooled on the ground around her, I've fallen to my knees and am trying to turn her over, to see if she's hurt. She has to be right? People, Sombrans, don't just collapse for no good reason.
Zill!I scream in my head, scream in his head. Even if I wanted to do the whole soft thing, now is not the time. If there was ever a time for screaming into someone else's mind, my bodyguard falling unconscious should be one of them.
Leave Isha, get back into the studio. Go to your dressing room and lock the door. Kolos and I are on our way. You needto hide.Zill's thoughts make everything come into agonizing focus.
When Isha fell, I thought for a split second she was sick or maybe epileptic. But right before she'd dropped, she'd said that she couldn't hear anyone. Even if we kicked everyone out of the building, Brandr was still waiting for us in the transport. She should've been able to hear his thoughts, and if she couldn't hear those, then that means something had happened to him, too.
Reese, love, please. I need you to hide until I can get there.
That's a fine thought, and one I should be listening to. But just like when I realized my apartment had been broken into, my instinct is to freeze. I want to run, scream, hide, or fight. Honestly, I'd take anything over kneeling here next to Isha's unconscious body and shaking like a leaf.
I can't. I can't.For the first time, my words might actually go through softly in Zill's mind. It's not because I'm trying to make them do that, but because even in my own head, I'm paralyzed with fear.
Footsteps scuff against the concrete floor in the parking garage, and the slightest whimper comes out of my mouth as a figure appears. I wish I could say that I know who he is, that his face is revealed, and everything falls into place. But it isn't like that. He's tall, with tanned skin and dark, cropped short hair styled neatly. He looks like a businessman, not some unhinged stalker.
My mind actually gives me a little spurt of hope for a moment. It tries to tell me that this man won't hurt me. He doesn't look like a monster. And then he smiles, and it's cold and dead and altogether unsettling as he stands above me.
"It's so nice to speak to you face to face finally," the man says.
I don't respond, can't respond. He doesn't seem to mind, or if he does, he isn't doing anything about it. He tucks his hand into the pocket of his dress pants, and when he pulls it out, there's asyringe filled with some sort of liquid. I shake harder, the only reaction I'm capable of, even if more than anything, I want to run right this very second.
"This will pinch, but I promise I don't want to hurt you," the man says, his tone almost apologetic. He steps over Isha's unconscious body and kneels beside me, his palm caressing my cheek, brushing at the tears I didn't realize were wetting my face. "I know things were heated between us, but I've decided to forgive you. Now that you're mine, you're going to realize just how good I can treat you."
"Please," I whimper, hating the catch in my throat, the way all of the breath feels like it's been pulled from my lungs.
"Shh, it's going to be okay. We're together now, and that's all that matters." He pulls me toward him, and I don't have the strength to fight him, don't have the strength to do anything but limply fall against him. The bite of the needle is a pinch in my neck, and then he pushes down on the plunger. "There, now we can be together."
My mind grows groggy in an instant. The world sways around me, my own thoughts becoming a jumbled mess. I don't want to fall asleep, but whether I want it or not, it's happening. As the darkness begins to engulf me, Zill's thoughts are the last thing I hear.
Reese, we're coming. I swear we're–
CHAPTER 24
ZILL
ONE HOUR EARLIER
Breaking News! Empress's new bodyguard/lover is cold and rude to our interviewer. Watch the clip here!
It's more than a little suspicious that Jeremy is in the city today. Useful, but suspicious. He hasn't gone back to Reese's apartment as far as I'm aware, but that doesn't mean he's here for non-nefarious reasons. Okay, I'm being a little harsh before I've even met with him, but in my defense, he's almost definitely guilty of something.
"He agreed to meet," Kolos says. "There's a coffee shop near Reese's apartment that he's already camping out at. We can meet him there."
"Why is he waiting in a coffee shop by Reese's apartment?" I ask.
I'm in a constant fight with my shadows as they try to complain to me about how we still have Reese cut off from our thoughts. If it were up to them, they'd let her hear everything. It doesn't matter how many times I tell them this is for the best; they're going to keep up their endless whining and desperate cries to be back with our soulbond. As soon as I know whether ornot Jeremy had something to do with all of this, I'll let her back in.
"I don't know," Kolos breaks me out of my struggle with my shadows. They could easily give in, but on some level, they know what I'm saying is for the best.
"Wait, why did he even agree to meet? What did you say to him?"
Whatever other concerns I had are put aside, because Jeremy has been adamant about not wanting to meet any Sombrans. That alone should be enough to think he's guilty of something.
Kolos looks at me, taking his headband off and tossing his curls back as he swings his head. His lips are already pulled up into a smirk, and whatever he's about to say, I already know he lied to Jeremy.
"I told him I was with Reese's accounting team and we were looking to raise the amount she was leaving to the family if he answered a few questions for us."
