“Hey,” he said, that twitch of his mouth turning into a straight-up smile. “Leon.”
I looked back and forth between Alexander and this Leon person, realizing they were… were they fraternal twins? Just enough was different about them to not be identical, but it was close. Really, really close.
What the hell?
“Hi,” I greeted him back, suddenly feeling shy—and still cautious no matter what anybody said—as I pulled my hand away and fought the urge to palm the knife again.
“I’m Selene,” the voice to my left spoke up, pulling my attention toward the woman just an inch or two shorter than Alexander. Her hair was a lighter color, maybe blonde, and she was really pretty.
Her hand was already extended.
I took it too and said, all shy, “Hi.”
A huff had me snapping my head toward Alex, who… why the hell was he side-eyeing me like that for?
“What?” I blurted out like I hadn’t just been on the verge of hiding behind his indestructible ass.
The son of a bitch smirked. “That’s all you have? ‘Hi’? After you were ready to gut them?”
Oh hell. “I wasn’t ready to ‘gut’ anyone. I just wanted to… protect myself. Protect you,” I hissed at him in a whisper, embarrassed. To be fair, I was ready to shank people, but he didn’t need to say anything about it. He knew what we’d been through. They didn’t. “Just in case,” I insisted, barely loud enough for him to hear.
He didn’t believe me. “We talked about this already.”
“We did, and remember what I said about trust issues?” I asked.
That got me a sigh before he shook his head and focused on Selene and his almost doppelgänger, Leon.
Who were these people?
“Can we go?” he asked them. “We’ve got a long drive.”
Long drive? How long?
It didn’t matter, did it?
This was the start of the next phase in my life.
Homeless. Penniless. Exposed.
But it was a new chapter. Maybe even a new book.
* * *
I had no idea where we were going, and I couldn’t find the right time to ask.
We’d been in the car for hours, and I’d spent most of the time staring out the window pretending to think… but really, I was listening.
Alex had caught everyone off guard when he’d gotten into the back passenger seat. I’d seen their faces; I knew they hadn’t expected it. I got into the back seat before either of them beat me to it. The man named Leon shot the woman a look, and they’d both smiled before she got behind the wheel and he took the front passenger seat.
Alex hadn’t exactly talked nonstop, but he had told them a lot more than I’d expected. From what I was starting to pick up, it was only me he was hesitant to talk to. That, or he was in a really, really good mood. I wasn’t sure which, but since I was curious about everything, I wasn’t going to complain about him being a chatter bug.
He told the strangers about being “hit in the back” and finding himself in my yard. I didn’t miss the tension in the car or the looks that all three of them shot one another through the rearview mirror. He told them about how I’d helped him, about how weak and injured he’d been the whole time. Selene and Leon asked questions, and I could tell that they knew… well, everything it seemed like. About him, I meant.
Neither of the strangers made a peep about how he had waited to contact them. No one touched on the topic of what might have possibly been able to hurt him, which just told me they knew exactly what or even who had done it. The fact none of them seemed overly alarmed about the injury calmed me down some.
Alexander had continued with the story, talking about the cartel showing up and taking us. When he skated over what they had done to me in the other room and about his back finally healing, you could tell they were surprised. He even mentioned how sick I’d been afterward. How sick I still was, as if they couldn’t hear the coughs I was still trying to muffle or how even though my throat hurt less, I still sounded like a cartoon character.
Except when he told the story, I realized justhowsick I had been.He hadn’t wanted me to know, I figured out real quick, which I appreciated.
