“I don’t know. The ritual is kept secret. Like everything about Fraternitas. I can try to get in touch with Odette?—”
“No, don’t.” I shake my head.
“It’s like the skull rings,” Honey says. “They earn them by killing a man. Or is it ten?”
I get a violent flashback to Jaeger in the stairwell, the blood spattered on his jaw.
“Oh, gods.” I lean over my knees. “I don’t want to know.”
“Elodie,” Daria says, and I cover my ears with my hands. Not that I can hear anything over the loud rushing sound, like water crashing through a hole in a giant dam. I close my eyes.
When I open them again, Honey and Daria are looking at me sympathetically.
“I’m sure it’ll turn out okay,” Honey says. She squeezes my knee and stands.
“We have to get back to work.” Daria motions to Honey to leave and hesitates, looking back at me.
“Go,” I say. “I need a minute.” I have to calm down before I can face Jaeger and a roomful of men with skull rings.
Daria hesitates again, and I flap a hand at her. “I’ll be fine.” I knot my hands together until the door shuts, and I’m alone.
My ankle is sore but nowhere near as painful as it was yesterday. A good night’s sleep helped a ton. Maybe I’ll be mobile sooner than later.
And then what? Can I run? Where do I go? I can’t head to Aunt Carol’s. Besides not wanting to lead the loan sharks there,her hospitality will be stretched too thin. Better for me to run in the opposite direction.
Another thought hits me. Jaeger knows where Margot is. He could threaten her and the kids or hold them over my head as blackmail to make me return.
I reject the thought as soon as I have it. Jaeger will never hurt her or the kids. I don’t know him well, but I know that.
He has an odd sense of honor for a murdering criminal.
But I’m afraid Honey is right. Jaeger might want to keep me. And nothing will stop him.
There are murmurs in the hallway outside the door, and I figure I’ve been in here long enough.
I grab the chair rail and use it to support my slow limp to the door. Once I’m there, I lean on the handle, shifting my weight, and open it.
There’s a dark figure in the hall. I startle back until the low light gleams on a golden head.
“Jaeger?” All I can see of him is a tattooed hand and a skull ring.
When the figure steps into the light, I realize it’s not Jaeger at all.
The man looks like Jaeger, with the same leonine head and stormy blue eyes. His face is identical, and even the tattoos are similar. But he’s not the same. This isn’t the man I ran from in the forest or the one I snuggled with last night.
No, this man looks down on me like I’m a bug he’s about to squash. Jaeger has never looked at me like this.
“Who are you?” My question dies on my lips when he steps forward. A big hand, covered to the knuckle with a spiderweb tattoo, cups my jaw. He turns my face this way and that.
A jolt of fear runs through me at his callous touch. I freeze like a rabbit in a trap.
Before I collect myself to scream or push him away, he releases me and steps back, a sneer twisting his face.
“So, little red,” he says. “You’re the one who’s trapped my brother.”
8
Elodie
