He grunts. “Oh, for—just—stop moving, would you?”
“I’m trying!”
“Thisis you trying?”
He grabs my arms harder than necessary and yanks them around his shoulders, then shuffles my legs into place. “Jesus—what the hell was that?”
“Momentum,” I wheeze, already laughing at how absolutely pathetic that was.
Kai is not laughing. “That was an attack.”
“Sorry, sorry!” I try again, scrambling to get a grip. “Just give me a second—”
“You’re taking multiple,” he mutters.
“I don’t know how to do this, okay?” I hiss, awkwardly wrapping my arms around his shoulders and flailing a leg up. “People don’t just—casually—ride other people—”
Kai mutters something under his breath that I don’t ask him to repeat. Mostly because we start moving, and suddenly I’m gripping onto him for dear life as he walks with exactly zero regard for the fact that I am barely attached and might actually die.
The journey to the car is violent.
He moves fast. I bounce. A lot. Every step actually rattles my soul. At one point, I accidentally pull at his neck, and he literally snarls.
“Can you—not—strangle me?”
“Can you not be built like a human brick wall?”
“If you’re uncomfortable, the solution is simple. Get down,” he suggests.
“Oh, yeah, I’ll just hop right off and start doing cartwheels.”
He says nothing.
By the time we reach the car, I feel like I’ve been in actual combat. He yanks the door open and goes to set me down in the passenger seat. But instead of gracefully placing me inside like a normal person, he whacks my head on the door frame.
A loud, dullthunk.
I freeze. My vision goes static. A single, pained breath rattles through my lungs.
Kai also freezes. Slowly, his hands tighten on my arms, “Are you alright?” he asks, going stiff.
I let the silence drag. Then, very calmly, I say, “You might have just concussed me.”
His jaw tightens. “You’re fine. I’m sorry.”
“Am I? Because I’m pretty sure I just got bodied by your Rolls Royce.”
“You’re fine,” he says again, a touch more firmly this time, as he unceremoniously shoves me the rest of the way in and slams the door shut behind me.
I hear him take a deep breath.
When he finally slides into the seat beside me, I glance over and mutter, “Optimism, huh?”
He doesn’t reply, only quirks a brow and turns toward the driver. “Prenez-nous à l’hôpital, s’il vous plaît,” he says.
My head whips toward him so fast my already abused skull screams in agony. “How many languages do you speak?”
Kai flicks his gaze to me, smooth, faintly amused. “A few.”
