Page 119 of Fury

“Yes.”

“To who?” The most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

“To someone else,” slid out of my mouth.

“Someone normal?”

“He’s not in the life. Has no idea.”

“Marry me,” he said.

“I can’t.”

His head fell back against the wall, his body sagging. An inhuman, savage wail escaped his lips. “You’re my heaven and my hell, you know that?” came his hoarse voice prickling the dull air.

“You’re mine too.”

The silence between us was thick and thorny.

His broad chest heaved. “You doing this on purpose? To get out from under me?”

“It has nothing to do with you,” I lied.

Eric and I had been together for a year now, and he was everything Finger wasn’t. He was incredibly easygoing, never had much of a strong opinion about anything except his music. The mood between us was light; he didn’t demand deep from me and I didn’t offer. The daily cares were dealt with and met with a smile every time. Eric was a ride in a convertible on a Sunday afternoon, top down, sun in your eyes, a song on the radio blaring that you both sing along to.

Finger was a hard ride on a loud motorcycle, a hundred miles an hour through a tunnel of fire. Heart pounding, holding on tight for your life, yet you knew you wouldn’t fall off.

You’d never felt more alive.

“What was this just now, then?” Finger snapped at me. “Your last little fling with dirty?”

“No, I just—”

“Thing is, I don’t want to get out from under you,” he said, his voice low, unsteady. “I’ve been enduring this all these years because you and me....you and me...”

His mouth, the mouth I knew so well, the mouth I’d retraced over and over on my own lips in the hellish quiet of the night all these years, would still feel on my flesh like the visitation of a ghost, pressed into a firm line. His shimmering dark metallic eyes sunk their fangs in my soul, drawing blood from the artery in my neck. The fierce sting shuddered through me. There would be no healing from this gash. I would bear the mark forever, like so many other marks.

Now so would he.

“I was pregnant,” I blurted.

“What?”

“I found out just before you got arrested. I thought I had some virus or it was stress. I got tested, and it was positive.”

He stilled, his stony eyes on me, his face pale, hard. “That was years ago. What—did you have an ab—”

“I lost it.” I stretched my dress further down my legs.

“A miscarriage?”

“I went to Turo for a reason. It wasn’t just for a new identity. Motormouth found me. He broke into my apartment and told me he was bringing me back to Med.”

“I know. Turo told me.”

“Motormouth saw photos of you and me. He was going to tell Med that you had gotten me out. I couldn’t let him take me back or ruin you. I couldn’t let them hurt you again.”

“Serena—”

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