My mouth goes dry. So his parents did speak to him. I wasn’t even sure they knew. My uncle dragged me out the moment he saw me. It was the funeral of a mutual acquaintance, he told me, between the Flynns and the Learys, and that was why Storm was there at all.
“You are never to see him again, Lydia.” Lynx spoke from the other side of the closet. I didn’t leave it for three days.
“You just saved me from jumping off this cliff. Either you want to reenact what we did in the dark, or you want to interrogate me, but either way, you don’t want to kill me.” I pinch my eyes shut tight. “So let me fucking go.”
He is still.
The river thrashes somewhere far below my body.
I wonder if he knew I’d moved close. I wonder if we’re both one another’s surprise.
After a moment, without a word, he releases my head, then, too slowly, his weight comes off me.
I don’t make any sudden movements.
Not until I count to three in my head.
Then I do what I should have done in the first fucking place.
I slowly sit up, facing away from him, and unsheathe the hunting knife at my thigh. In the dark, I doubt he can see what I’m doing with my black hair hanging around my face and covering most of my lap. That’s the beauty of long hair. Not what it looks like, but how it can be used as a literal shield.
Then I strike.
I twist quick like Eve taught me, and I spring up on my knees so I can plunge the knife into his fucking side.
It doesn’t sink into his flesh like I want, the way he moves just as I attack him, but I know he’s bleeding from the hiss that escapes his teeth.
I hurry behind him, forcing him to turn to face me, so his back is to the cliff’s edge.
I grip the knife tight in my hand and see the gun in his. I wonder if it’s mine or if he had another tucked in his waistband beneath his black sweater that shows all the bulges of his muscles. He’s tall, lean, with black hair, light eyes, white skin.
Everything I remember, butmore.
Fox couldn’t find a recent photograph of him because his parents seemed to have scrubbed any trace of him from anywhere.
His eyes pierce me the same.
The first time ours locked across the room in the parlor.
Then, there was something familiar about them. I’ve never been able to figure out why.
Now…he’s a man. Not a boy. And when he was a boy, he touched me like he owned me and all the world, too.
It makes ice run up my spine. What could he do to me now?
But I can’t drown in memories, so I do what I’ve been trained to do.
Compartmentalize.
And focus.
His tattooed hand is pressed to the wound on his side. It tore through his shirt.
I glance at the blade I hold up between us and see red.
A smile curves my lips as his eyes meet mine, his palm still covering where I stabbed him.
He tilts his head, then gestures toward me with the gun. “It’ll scar,” he admits, and I know he’s speaking about where I cut him. “But this will kill.”
