“I’m fine,” I manage. “I’m— How did you— Where?”
“I was?—”
On the ground, the man groans and tries to roll over. Bastian’s foot lands on his chest, pinning him down. “Stay,” he orders, like the man is a disobedient dog.
Sirens wail in the distance, getting closer. Bastian looks down the road and frowns. Then he drops to a knee next to the man’s prostrate body and starts digging through his pockets.
I recoil. “Bastian, what are you?—?”
“Hush.” He finds the man’s wallet, pulls it out, and removes the driver’s license. Whatever he sees there makes his scowl deepen.
He tucks the ID in his own pocket, then rises again. There’s this smooth, dark nastiness to his motions that is making my skin crawl. I don’t know how to explain what it is or why it gives me that reaction. It’s just the lack of hesitation at any part of this.
He hit the man so hard. He didn’t hesitate.
He took the man’s ID. He didn’t hesitate.
And now, as he turns his attention on me again, he doesn’t hesitate. He grabs me by the wrist and drags me, half-jogging, down the path. We plunge into the wooded part of the park, veer off the path, then emerge from a copse of trees and find his Range Rover parked on the curve.
I try to dig my heels in. “Bastian, I’m so lost. What is happening? How are you here? Who was that? I’m?—”
He whirls on me, and there it is, physical proof of the aura he’s emanating. His eyes areblack.Straight-up pits of hell black. It’s like a different soul has come to possess the body of Bastian Hale. The man who bandaged me so sweetly yesterday is nowhere to be found.
There’s a devil in his place.
That devil puts one hand on my hip and uses the other to open the passenger door of his car. “No more questions,” he orders. “Get in the car.”
41
ELIANA
rough cut: /r?f k?t/: noun
1: imprecise, uneven knife work.
2: when you’re so fucking gone for someone that you let them shred you apart, one bit at a time.
I get in the car.
What else am I going to do? The man with the black eyes and bloodied knuckles isn’t asking. He’scommanding, and some primal part of my brain understands that arguing right now would be a very, very bad idea.
Bastian slams the door shut and careens away from the curb before I’ve even buckled my seatbelt. The sirens are closer now, maybe a block away. He takes a hard right, then another, then a rapid U-turn, weaving through residential streets with a steely-eyed calm that suggests he’s done this before, too.
I steal glances at him as he drives. His jaw is locked tight, a muscle ticking beneath the skin. His hands are choking the life out of the steering wheel.
He doesn’t look at me. The silence is suffocating.
We reach my building in minutes that feel like hours. Bastian parks in a loading zone and kills the engine. He jumps out, rounds the hood, and hauls me out of the car the same way he threw me in it—not rough, just shy of bruising, but there is no mistaking where he wants me to go.
“Hurry.”
He half-leads, half-drags me up the steps to my building. I fumble with my keys, but when they nearly slip through my shaking fingers, he snatches them from me with an impatient grunt. He unlocks the door himself, then pulls me inside and up the stairs to my apartment.
Once we’re through my door, Bastian locks it behind us. He slides the chain and deadbolt into place. Then he drags my kitchen chair over and wedges it under the doorknob.
He doesn’t stop there. I stand frozen in the middle of my tiny studio and watch him move through my space like a man possessed. He yanks down the blinds on my windows, blocking out the gray February light. He checks the bathroom, the closet, even under my bed. I hear the rip and rasp of the shower curtain as he makes sure no one is hiding in my bathtub.
Then he goes to my kitchen counter and pulls a chef’s knife from the butcher block. He tests the edge against his thumb, grimaces, and tosses it into the sink with a goosebump-inducing rattle before he selects another one. After that one passes his test, he sets it on my coffee table, within easy reach.
