Page 219 of Like Grim Death: Part One
Nothing.
I don’t see him.
“Are you the crazy one, Ella? Or am I?”Those words linger in my head.
I reach a shaky hand out, feeling under the cool side of my pillow, and relief nearly makes me cry out loud at the feel of my phone. I pull it out, blinking rapidly as I unlock my screen.
Mavy: Where THE FUCK are you?
Dread is heavy in my gut, and I exit out of my messages, seeing I have thirteen missed calls, all from Maverick.Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I start to call him back, but he’s calling me again. It’s three in the morning. Tuesday. Fuck. How long have we been apart? How long has he been looking for me?
Butyouleftme.
I spin around, casting my eyes around the darkness. I don’t see anything. Anyone. I don’t hear anything as I answer the phone, holding it to my ear.
“H-hello?” My voice is scratchy, and I hear Maverick curse under his breath.
It sounds like relief. But the next second, I know that’s not quite it when he says, “Where the fuckare you?” His tone is cool and calm, and it freaks me out.
I think about Atlas.
The drink he gave me. And the dream…Was it a dream?It’s already retreating now, shadowy, out of my grasp. It’s all bleary.
“Ella.” Maverick’s cold word brings me back to this moment as I scramble to my feet, but everything spins, even in darkness, and I feel lightheaded as I back up, and up, and up, my spine against the wall. “I need you, right now,right fucking now,to tell me where you are.”
The words are on the tip of my tongue.Atlas’s room.But if I say that, if he thinks I’ve been in here the whole time… oh, shit, if I say that, he’s going to hate me.
But wait. No. Heleft me in here.
I shake off my exhaustion, and I take a step toward what I think is the door out of here. I feel sick, vertigo setting in. Another step. Another. My feet are bare, but my pants are on, my top, and a… hoodie. I glance at it, but I keep walking, even as I think I might fall and twist my ankle, the way I’m unstable and unsteady, in more ways than one.
“I’m…” I trail off, my voice cracking as I reach for the door handle, and relief floods through me when I grab onto it. I pull it down and open the door, slipping into the cold hallway beyond Atlas’s room. Soft blue lights are lit along the panels in the floor here, and I head toward the right, to what I know is a staircase that will lead down to the main level. From there, inside my head, I map out the way: I’ll walk past the pool, the gym, the living room, and I’ll find the stairs going up to Mav and Luce’s level. “I’m at the pool,” I say, hoping to Godhe’snot at the pool. “Why did you leave me?” It comes as a weak afterthought, but I’m too disoriented to be strong. To bite back.
I reach my arm out to push open the double door at the end of the hallway, the one leading to the stairs that go down, when I see something on my arm, my hoodie sleeve shoved up to the crease of my elbow.
My blood runs cold, and my hand slips from keeping the door open. It thuds shut, and I realize Maverick isn’t saying anything on the other end of the line.
I can barely breathe, staring at the scrawl on my inner forearm.
My heart races, tachycardic.
It’s in silver marker.Conatus sum.
“I’m coming to you,” I blurt out, worried about Maverick’s silence, but I need more time. I need time to look this up, and I need to get off the phone to do that, and I need to scrub it off of my skin and—
“No.I’mcoming toyou.”Then the call ends, and I gasp, stumbling through the door, racing down the stairs as I try to type on my phone with one hand, the unfamiliar words on my arm.
What did you do to me, Atlas?
My fingers are shaky, and I close my other hand along the banister of the stairs, the corridor eerily quiet as I take the steps two at a time, my screen jostling in my hand.
I get the first word typed in, but I have to glance at my inner forearm to remember the second. It’s like I’m forgetting everything.
I type that word as I hit the landing for the main level, pushing the lever of the door and running through, the sound of music flooding to my ears, the scent of chlorine and marijuana heavy down here. I’m nervous that when I get to the pool, Sid and Lucifer will be there, and I don’t want to see them.
I need to scrub this off my skin. I can’t tell Maverick what happened with Atlas unless I want to cough up all my secrets, and I’m not ready to give them up yet. I’m not finished with what I’m supposed to do, and I won’t jeopardize everyone for the sake of confiding in a boyfriend who left me after our threesome last night.
