Page 51 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
He’d repeated it flatly as if she’d spoken in a foreign language and he was trying to grasp the meaning of the words.
“Yes. That’s the question: Are you okay?”
It seemed to pull the plug on his anger, letting it filter out of his body like water down a drain. He exhaled, passed a hand over his face, and muttered, “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
Jack frowned at him. “Uh . . . no. Yes? I don’t know. What do you mean?”
“Do you have any sense of self-preservation whatsoever?”
It seemed a reasonable query, delivered with a solemn, intent gaze, so Jack answered it honestly. “Yes. My sense of self-preservation is intact, thank you. As is my sense of empathy for other people who might be having a hard time. Which you seem like you might be having. Hence the question.”
Bizarrely, Hawk groaned. “You see—that!” He pointed an accusing finger at her. “Stop doing that!”
“Doing . . .”
“Being nice!” he shouted. “Being compassionate! Being . . . you!”
“Don’t be me,” Jack repeated, nonplussed. “Right. You’d rather I be . . . ?”
“Someone else! Anyone else! Be the cold-hearted bitch I thought you were before I got to know you better!”
That hurt. It also confused the hell out of her. “Why are you mad at me?”
He shouted, “Because you make me crazy!”
Jack dropped her arms to her sides. “Hawk—”
“No! Just—no! We’re going to keep walking, and you’re going to keep quiet, and we’re going to go into the colony, and you and I are going to forget anything ever happened between us. You’re going to get your story, and get the hell out of my life! All right?”
Jack wasn’t stupid. She understood men; she’d had plenty of experience with their rage, their possessiveness, and their irrationality when pushed into a corner.
She knew by his words and his tone and the fury in his eyes that she’d triggered all the dark, slinking monsters of his nature, the things he would never admit to himself that he felt or thought or needed, and in doing so, had sealed her own fate.
She’d driven him away.
She’d made him hate her.
She was going to die in this jungle, alone.
The realization sliced through her body, cold as winter wind.
Fine. Hate me. Leave me. Go back on all your promises.
You won’t be the first.
Calmly, quietly, looking Hawk dead in the eye, Jack said, “All right.” Then she brushed past him, striding ahead into the dark forest.
After she’d gone several paces, Hawk called from behind her, “You have no idea where you’re going.”
“Yes, I do. This way.” Jack shoved a branch out of her face that appeared from the darkness.
She heard his “Argh!” of exasperation, and hoped he choked on his tongue.
“Jacqueline, stop!”
Tch! Like I’m taking orders from you again! She kept marching forward, stumbling over tree roots, flailing her arms in front of her to keep away the vines and branches and something that hovered nearby, whirring ominously close to her head. Was it a bird? An insect? A vampire bat? With her luck, it probably was a vampire bat, and she was going to die in the rainforest with a furry, winged rodent attached to her neck, fattened with her blood.
Figures.
