Page 147 of Like Grim Death: Part One
My cheeks burn, but I don’t look away from him. “Tell me what you meant. About RC. Why did you tell me that? Are they coming forme?Do they have a job for me? What is it?”
“Would it make you feel better if you had another fix, Ella?” He changes subjects so fast, my brain has a hard time thinking through his question.
And yeah, I desperately want another pill from Atlas, but I won’t ask him for it.
I do have a little pride.
But then my stomach drops. I take a step back, then another. He watches me carefully, no smile now.
“You…” I trail off, thinking through everything we’ve done together in the dark. “You’ve been drugging me so I…soI’llbe like the patients you spoke about? So they’ll pinpoint something onme?”My voice rises at the end.
Atlas trails around the island, coming closer to me, and I want to back up but there’s nowhere to go.
“No,” he says softly, his hands hip level, palms down, like he’s trying to calm me. “Think this through. Areyougoing to start spreading rumors, Ella? Has anyone asked you to kill someone? Rob a fucking bank?”
I shake my head back and forth, like I can clear my brain. “But why did you tell me that? What are you saying? I don’t understand.”
He comes closer and without thinking, I dart my hand out and reach for the butcher’s knife on the block, azingresounding through the air as I hold it up between us, my hand shaky but I grip the handle tight.
He stops but only smiles. “Put it down, Ella.”
I shake my head once, inching along the counter to put more space between us, my free hand clenched into a fist. “What are you saying to me,and why?”
“Put it down.” He offers nothing else.
I’m tired of being kept in the dark.
“I don’t want to say it again.” The same calm, measured tone.
Fuck you.“I don’t want toaskagain!”
Silence follows my outburst. My chest heaves and my palm grows sweaty around the handle of the blade.
Then he moves.
He comes at me without hesitation, and I remember the words he first spoke to me, when we started training together.“You only go for a weapon if you plan to use it.”
And I don’t. I didn’t. Because as confused as I am, there’s still something in me wanting totrustAtlas. To trustsomeonein this dark world.
He circles his hand around my wrist, pressing against the bones in a way that it’s a reflex to splay my fingers, dropping the knife. Smoothly, he slides his hand along mine and grabs the handle, then he’s pushing his body to mine as he holds the tip of the large, metallic blade to the underside of my chin.
I freeze, my hands up but not between us because his chest is already there, his thighs against my hips, caging me in.
I feel the pinprick of the knife on the soft skin just above my throat.
His pupils dilate as he stares at me, one hand gripping the counter beside my hip. But he doesn’t say anything, and it causes me to talkmore.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you even keeping our secret from Maverick if you just plan to throw me to the wolves?” Everytime I speak, I feel the edge of the knife against my skin. “Why even bother?” It’s hushed whispers, the words from my mouth.
He studies me clinically, andthatscares me, considering our position. I could count his lower lashes if I wanted. See the pieces of dark blue amongst the brown of his eyes. But when I drop my gaze, it’s only his wrist I see, the blue veins up his forearms as he corners me with this knife.
“No one ever believed in you, did they?”
My chest tightens, but he doesn’t say it like an insult. I lift my eyes to his, not moving, not speaking.
“Not your mom. Not your friends.” I never really had any of those, so he’s right. “Not even Maverick.” My lips are pressed together, and I inhale sharply through my nose. “Not Sid.” He whispers her name, and it hurts me, somehow, hearing it. The ways I can’t connect with her, and all of them seem to breathe in sync with her and I can’t be that. “I know what that’s like. You’ll do anything to prove your worth, won’t you?” His gaze rakes down my body pressed to his, but it isn’t in a sexual way. It’s like he’s seeing the wounds that are hidden. The ones he can’t possibly know about. “I would too,” he continues.“That’swhy I bother.”
The answer is heavier than I thought it would be and I still don’t speak as I stare at him. He’s missing Mavy’s hard edges and unlike my boyfriend, he smiles a lot, dimples in his cheeks when he does.
