Ignoring my question there? “What’s your name?”
“Let’s use Kail.”
A name from the past. I have too many dead people to remember. He can’t know. Can’t know that is the name of a man who was a close friend, and the reason I hated Revenant for so many years.
A grin splits his face like a gash, then lightning cracks as if to emphasize the moment. He studies me.
My hand is now a fist. My heart jumped when he suggested Kail. The rain noise dulls.Kail.Burying him broke my heart.
I’m shaking again.
“Kail is unusual.” I clear my throat, raise one eyebrow to act nonchalant.
He shrugs. “That’s good. I am unusual.”
He doesn’t know the significance, and why am I fluffing about with names? I should be asking why does someone want me killed, and who sent you, and a million other questions I’m too drunk to figure out.
He hasn’t killed me. Yet. He could have. This is good. I allow myself to move away from the wall, putting a hand to it to steady myself. The recent top-up of whisky is soaking in, gluing my brain with a fresh swimming pool of mush, and with the rain it gives the balcony a smudged, foggy air.
I sway, swallow, and consider throwing up.No. Don’t.
He gestures at the door. “May I enter?”
“Uhhh.” Run and hope he’s slow? My floppy socks are stillon. “I guess, you can?” That comes out slurred.Fuck. Don’t drink when a big bad man is coming over to murder me.
I am obnoxiously drunk.
“Thank you.” He half-bows at the waist, then replicates that ghastly grin.
I saidyesto him entering. If he’s a vampire, I am so cooked.
I leave my hand on the wall so I don’t topple.
“You’re not a vampire, are you?” I giggle.
“Nooo. I am not.” He tilts his head, checks out the discarded whisky bottle which is mostly empty. “You are very drunk.”
I squint at him, my finger and thumb only a fraction apart, to show how much I am drunk. “Jussha little.”
Then I fall over, properly, slipping on the drips from my own hair, my own feet, or something, and I’m heading for face-butting the floor?—
Except he catches me.
“Fast, you are.”
“By design, Yoda.” He readjusts his hold, lifting me into his arms before heading for the door. His warmth soaks into me at first contact, as does the glorious hardness of his male body.
That was a joke? “You, mister, you made a joke?” I waggle my finger at him.
He frowns down at me, creases like black ravines form on his scary, sutured monster face. His large hands shift on my thigh and beside my breast. Something, maybe a staple, scratches me through the leggings.
For a second, I’m frightened. In another, below, between my legs, begins to stir. I try not to look at his face or feel wherethose hands are resting. My cheeks are hot.What is wrong with me?
Then he focusses on my feet, where my sodden socks droop halfway off each foot. “Hmmm.”
That’s what I tripped on.
“Your socks should be removed. You will get sick from the rain and cold. Let’s go inside.”
