BONNIE
We’re finally headingthrough the lobby when I realize she isn’t taking me to the exit. She’s taking me to Building B—the adjacent complex.
“Wait, you live in Building B?” I ask when we circle into B’s lobby, the words spilling out as I remember that she just told me we were going to the other building, and that I shouldn’t be surprised.
We step inside, and she presses the button for the fifteenth floor.
“Yeah,” she replies. She leans her back against the wall, and I can’t discern the look in her eyes, her shoulders are rounded, hands cupped around the railing. “What’s in my place… you can’t run when you see it.”
I step up to her, making her peer down at me in that dominant way that makes my knees weak.
“I’m only running if it means you’ll tie me up and fuck me after,” I breathe against her lips.
“I thought you were mad at me.”
“I’m fucking furious,” I hiss. “Still, you don’t have to worry about me going anywhere. Now that I know your psychomatches mine, you get your wish. Me.All of me. That’s what you wanted, right?”
She’s staring at my mouth when she says, “Yes,” in a breathless rasp.
“Then I also get you. In all your forms.”
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“It means you don’t get to stop being her just because you got caught.”
The elevator doors open. Gemma tilts her head, nose brushing mine.
“Red-fucking-handed,” she drawls. “Harley.”
“Ivy.”
I chastely kiss her lips, and she grabs my hand to walk us down the hall to her apartment.
She’s been right here.
She was five minutes from me the entire time.
Gemma pauses at the door, keys out as if she wants to say something. I reach under her hoodie, grab my gun, and press it into her side.
“Just open the fucking door,” I tell her.
Her hand turns the key, and when she opens it, she makes a gesture as if she’s waiting for me to go in first.
It looks like a normal apartment.
Sectional couch. Dining table. Television. No decorations or glimmers of her personality, though. Still…
“This isn’t so scary,” I say, glancing over my shoulder at her. “A little dull… kind of hospital-chic. Honestly, I thought there might be bodies. Evidence of kidnapping. Ropes. Dungeon setting. Maybe weapons. Worst-case scenario would have been a whole Jeffrey Dahmer situation.”
Gemma scoffs and sets my bag on the kitchen island. “I’m not a serial killer, Bonnie,” she says, going into her bedroom.
“I’d believe you, except you broke his spine and snapped his neck like you’ve done it before,” I say.
Gemma’s eyes roll my way from the closet she just picked a duffle out of, and I pivot in her direction, arms drooping at my sides.
“Oh.”
Because she’s clearly done this before.
