Page 50 of Dark Knight

"I understand," I replied, the heat of a blush spreading over my cheeks. "But you can't control other people's actions, and you can't be around me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That’s just not feasible." I shook my head and gave him a small squeeze.

"We'll figure it out, though. Nobody's going to hurt you again. You're ours now. Do you understand that?"

I nodded slowly. It seemed like there was a deeper layer to what he was saying, but I didn't want to make assumptions that weren't true. He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on my forehead. It was a tender gesture coming from a man that I knew could be brutally violent should he choose to be.

After he pulled away, he started drying me off methodically, moving from my neck down to my arms and chest, working his way down my body. He still wasn't flirting or making any crude jokes like I was used to.

"Hud?" I asked. He paused and looked up at me, his cerulean gaze locking with my own. "If it turns out to be human remains in my locker.." I swallowed thickly as I said the words. "Can we find out who they belong to? I'd like to go to the funeral."

"That would just be torturing yourself," he said sharply before looking back down. "You don't need to know whether it was a human or not, and you certainly don't need to know who the heart belonged to if it is human. Besides, it was probably a pig's heart. I've seen that tactic before."

"If it is a human heart, though...Then I need to pay my respects. You might not understand that, but to me, that's an important part of death." I didn't say it out loud, but when a member of the Children of Radiance died, it was expected that everyone went to see the family. We would take them some food, help them grieve, and help manage the process for them. There was a schedule that we all followed. The schedule staggered us, so we didn't overwhelm the poor grieving family. Despite coming from the cult, the process was something that I appreciated more as I got older.

As Hud finished drying me off, he wrapped the towel around me once more. "I'll ask Dylan what he thinks. I'm not promising anything, though."

"Passing the buck, huh?" I offered him a small smile.

Hud shrugged and grinned, seeming happy to see me acting closer to my more normal self. "What good is having a mob boss run your life if you can't pass the buck occasionally?"

It was the first time he openly admitted that Dylan was a mob boss to me. It startled me slightly, but was oddly comforting since it was finally confirming something I had suspected from the beginning. "Fair enough." I shook my head as we both walked out of the bathroom.

"Make sure to dry your hair as well," he said as his phone started ringing. When he pulled it from his pocket, I saw Dylan's name on the screen. "I'll be right back," he said. "Don't leave the room."

"I won't."

He disappeared through the door. For some reason, I expected him to stay just outside so I could hear his voice through the door, but as he answered, his voice faded down the hallway. A shudder ran through me, and I quickly pulled on some underwear, leggings, and a t-shirt with some house slippers before toweling off my hair.

I wasn't sure what to do now.

I was clean.

I was dressed.

And somebody had potentially died to prove a point.

It wasn't something I was comfortable with.

I paced the bedroom, and the more I thought about it, the more antsy I was to know if the heart and blood belonged to a human, a pig, or something else. What kind of life had been taken so selfishly?

The longer I was on my own, the more my nerves seemed to rattle. I didn't want to be by myself right now. It didn't feel safe, but I understood that Hud and Dylan had things to take care of that they couldn't do around me.

If they had left Theo, I could have stayed with him, but Hud had stayed instead. While I didn't object because I felt like he would be better in a fight, it still sucked that he had to go and take phone calls out in the hallway just because they didn't want me to hear what was going on.

As I started to hear the sound of his voice moving back in my direction, I went and waited for him in front of the door. I didn’t stand close enough for him to smack me with it when he opened it, but I was close enough that it was clear I was eager for his arrival.

I promised myself that as soon as he came back in, I would latch onto him and not let go, no matter what he had to do or talk about in front of me. When the tone of his voice changed, rising and growing panicked, I wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Dylan? Dylan!" Hud yelled. "The fuck is going on?" Unlike before, his voice was loud enough that I could hear it through the walls. "Is that gunfire? Get somewhere safe. I'm on my way." Those words were the last thing that I heard before his footsteps thudded down the hall.

Away from me.

The idea of being alone in this house, or with just the staff who I didn't know or trust, was too much. I bolted out of the door after Hud. I had to go with him to wherever Dylan was. He wouldn't like it, but I knew he'd be in too much of a rush to fight me. I just had to make sure that I caught up to him. No matter what.

26

Evie

As I rounded the corner of the hallway to go down the stairs, I felt a presence behind me. Chills broke out over my skin. I tried to run, only to feel a hand clamp down on the back of my t-shirt and yank me backward.

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