“No, that was an awful thing to say. I don’t know why I’m acting like a bitch today—”
“Don’t.” The single word stopped my stunted explanation and I found myself casting sidelong looks in his direction as we continued eating. Brodie was different from Gunner and Sam, and all of them together like this threw his differences into sharp focus. He was older, maybe around thirty, so there was that, but it was more. He was all menace and hard edges, his infrequent smiles stiff and barely there, where Gunner and Sam were free with theirs. They were happy, focused on their women and their lives, while Brodie seemed intent on something larger. It was as if he was waiting for something, and couldn’t relax until whatever it was took place.
I leaned closer to him, the question on my lips warring with my natural instinct for self-preservation. If the answer was yes, then this was a potentially dangerous question. If it was no, it was simply stupid. I decided to take a chance. “So, there’s this rumor that you’re in the mafia.”
Brodie’s hand, holding a serrated knife, hesitated in its pass through his steak. From my vantage I saw a muscle jump beneath the dark russet scruff on his jaw. “Is there?” he commented mildly.
Twiggy caught my eye from across the table and gave a subtle shake of her head. I concentrated on my plate. “But I guess you knew that already.”
“I may have heard it a time or two.”
For the space of several bites, there was only the sound of Shiloh and Sammy bickering over something and the scrape of utensils on plates. I leaned a little closer to him, noting that despite the aura of threat that surrounded him, I wasn’t frightened. Maybe it was because all of my friends were here. Maybe it was because I didn’t feel as if the threat was aimed at me. Whatever the reason, despite myself I was growing increasingly curious about him. “It’s okay if you are, you know. I won’t tell—”
Mid-sentence, my senses froze, attuned instead to the melody coming from the song that had just started playing.
CCR’sBad Moon Risingpoured into the room just under the sounds of conversation, and yet it was the conversation that muted itself, until the voices were mere background static.
I’d heard it a thousand times growing up, as Shiloh had a weird fascination for classic hits. I’d sang along with it as we did algebra homework and worked up a sweat to its energetic beat when we hung out at the lake. Its lyrics had never been as clear as they were that night, when the song played in my earbuds during my evening run.
They fluttered against the edges of my vision now, the music forming words that shouted at me from the canvas in my mind. RAGE. RUIN. Over and over, they beat against my brain. Demanding admittance. Forcing entry. HOPE YOU ARE QUITE PREPARED—
“Emery?”
It was Brodie’s voice that pulled me from the edges of a fugue. I focused my vision to find them staring at me, all of them, and shook my head to clear it. “Can you turn that off, please?”
“The music?” At my nod, Shiloh stood and turned it off, frowning in my direction. “Cotton, are you okay? What just happened?” She looked at Gunner in confusion.
“I—” I stopped before I told her I was fine. I wasn’t fine; it was obvious I wasn’t fine. Shiloh wasn’t a dummy, and I wasn’t going to insult her intelligence. I raised my hand to my temple. “It’s a migraine. Just hit me. I’m going to lie down.”
My silverware dropped to my plate with a clatter as I stood, bumping into Brodie in my haste to get away. His hands reached to steady me, burning my arms where he touched me. Jerking away, I made my way quickly down the hall, ignoring the whispers that rose behind me.
The flashback Brodie’s voice had pulled me from moments before battered at the edges of my mind as soon as I closed myself in my room. With the door at my back, I slid down until my butt was on the floor and pressed my forehead into my bent knees. My finger found its spot, and as memory flooded my veins, I scrubbed it back and forth. Back and forth.
I needed to scrub it all away.
I couldn’t deal with this. Didn’t want to remember. I’d been doing so well, damnit, smiling and laughing like there was nothing the matter.
Now panic danced on the fringes of my consciousness, accompanied by his voice.Stop fighting. You’ve been eye fucking me since you got here.
With a whimper, I raised myself to my knees and crawled toward the nightstand. I needed a Valium.
An insidious thought reached into my consciousness.Maybe all of them.
I had stretched a hand into the drawer when a brief knock sounded. “I’m fine. Go away,” I muttered. The door opened anyway, and Brodie’s face appeared around the wood panel. “Really. Go away.” Shaking a single pill into my hand, I dry swallowed it under his watchful gaze.
“What’s up with you, love?”Love.His accent curled around the word. He moved into the room and squatted beside me, plucking the bottle of pills from my hand and glancing at it. If he saw my involuntary flinch, he didn’t let on, just studied me with curious eyes, as though I was an insect pinned to a board.
“I told you. I have a migraine.”
“A migraine doesn’t require Valium. It doesn’t make you tremble.” Without touching me, he nodded to my hands. I looked down at them with a frown. I hadn’t even noticed.
Thank God he hadn’t tried to touch me.
“It’s none of your business, Brodie. I don’t even know you.”
“Maybe I want to know you.”
“Maybe you’re doomed to be disappointed,” I returned.
