“We’ve left Kacey! We need to—”
“Ezekial came. He stayed with them until it was time for Kacey to leave.”
“To leave?” She glances behind her, seeing the district illuminated by the rising sun. “But it’s still morning?”
“Of the next day.”
Her head swivels back to me. “You’re joking. We’ve been hereallnight?” Her gaze darts over me, my body, my skin on fire from her thorough assessment. “You slept like that!? Why didn’t you just take me back to Kacey’s?”
Why?
Why didn’t I take her back to someone else’s home, somewhere I can’t easily access, and put her into another’s bed? Leave her with a person who isn’t in my most trusted circle? As though removing her from my body was a simple prospect?
Why?
There are too many truthful answers.
Because she’s safer with me. Because I made her sleep. Because I couldn’t let her go. Because in this small moment, she’smine. Because…
“Because I didn’t want to leave you,” I answer, truthfully.
Because I am telling the truth.
“Oh, well…” Her face does all sorts of entrancing micro-expressions, I try to catalogue them but she’s speaking again. “Thank you for… for letting me rest, and for killing your back in the process.”
Let it snap. I’ll break my spine if it means she’ll stay.
But with that, she begins to stand. All I want to do is find an excuse to have her clinging to me again... but I can’t.
She starts to stretch and I suddenly realise I can’t move, I refuse to move, because I must watch. I have to check she stretches every muscle correctly, causes herself no harm, because I’m an expert in stretching.
When I know I have to stop staring, her skin flushing slightly, I stand.
The pain in my back is immediate but so is my darkness’ response. Like a reward, it heals the ache instantly, reminding me of what it can do when I just give in to my more basic needs. I’m so consumed by that realisation that I hardly notice Jasmine is now watching me as I stretch.
I may decide to take a little longer, especially when I feel her gaze burn into my stomach.
I blame my darkness.
“Are you hungry?” I dare to ask, hoping she doesn’t recoil from me, but needing her to look away from my body before I do something...
“Huh?” Her hazy gaze races to mine. Her cheeks are more flushed, her hair fluffy as she shakes her head. It’s cruel, the way she looks, how innocently appealing she is to me. “A bit, I guess?”
Forcing myself to stop staring, I immediately text Ezekial and demand food.
“Is there a bathroom somewhere?”
“Through there.” I nod towards the door to her left, keeping my gaze lowered until I finish the message. “It’s a meeting room, no one else has access.”
She gives me a quick smile before heading towards it, and rather than watch her slip through the door like a normal person would, I’m filled with an irrational fear that she somehow won’t return.
So I follow.
Her brows furrow slightly, but that soft smile still lingers, almost as if I amuse her. And I seem to like that idea.
I don’t follow her all the way, well aware that’d be too obsessive, but out of all the seats at the long meeting table, I take the one closest to the bathroom.
The second she’s out of sight, I text Ezekial again.
