Page 85 of The Spider Queen
I shook my head and pulled my legs up to my chest as if that could somehow stop me from spilling the darkest secret I had ever carried.
“He told me his name. I can talk to him, Hunter,” I admitted in a shameful whisper. “I hear him in my mind.”
After that admittance, I waited for him to stand up and haul me out of Waffle House, back to the hospital, back to being tranquilized like an animal.
“Do you hear him now?”
My eyes snapped to his. He wasn’t being facetious or taunting. In fact, he looked rather…serious.
Thane?
Silence.
I shook my head. “I haven’t heard him since before I was in the hospital. I thought it might have been the drugs in my system, but—no, wait. I did hear him. I’m sorry, my mind is still foggy. I heard him right before I fell asleep. You’d just taken over driving and were getting us out of Charleston…” I felt the blood drain from my face. “He told me my dream wasn’t a dream. That it was real. Now do you think I’m crazy?”
“No. I told you that you weren’t,” he reminded me.
Shaking my head, I let out a huff of frustration. “Why would I have died if I’d stayed in the hospital?”
Our gazes locked. I needed answers.
Tension built between us.
It was disrupted by the waitress arriving with our plates of food. She plopped them onto the table and then turned away without saying a word.
Neither of us reached for our silverware.
I stared him down. I could feel it. He was so close to answering. I willed him to reply, to give me all the missing answers.
“I have one job, Poppy,” he said, his voice so quiet I had to lean in to hear him. “And that’s keeping you safe.”
“Because you’re my boyfriend. Right? And you care about me.”
He went to pick up his fork. “Eat your food, Poppy. You don’t want it to get cold.”
“Hunter—”
“Later, okay? I can’t tell you anything now. Not the way I want to—the way I need to. We need privacy for that.”
I started to eat my food. “But you will tell me?” I asked, feeling panic at the unknown swell in my chest. If anything was going to make me insane, it was the continued secrecy.
“When we get to Nashville,” he promised. “I’ll tell you everything then.”
We ate our food quickly, both of us wanting to get back on the road. I pushed away my empty plate and then used the restroom while Hunter paid the check.
“Why do you do that?” I demanded as I slid back into the passenger seat of the car. I closed the door and then buckled myself in.
He turned on the ignition and then reversed out of the parking lot. “Do what?” He shot me a quick look, frowning.
“Promise me answers and then not deliver.”
“You’re so damn impatient.”
“Impatient?” I growled. “Are youkiddingme? How would you feel if you were in my position? Huh? I just got broken out of a psych ward. Then I admitted to my boyfriend that I can talk to a spider, and he doesn’t even flinch.”
“Did you ever think that I’m just trying to figure out how to tell you everything I want to tell you? Because there’s so much, Poppy. And I don’t know how you’re going to take it.”
“Rip off the Band-Aid.”
