I’m lucky security didn’t kick my ass out onto the street the moment I walked through the doors, and I never would have been able to sweet-talk my way into getting a replacement key so easily if Xave wasn’t here to charm everyone and take the attention off me.
“I’ll take care of the key issue and get in touch with my contact to have the car and the cabin dealt with,” he says in a low voice as soon as the elevator doors close, leaving us alone in the small space. “Then we can hopefully forget this ever happened.”
“Sounds good,” I tell him. “I seriously just want this all to be over.”
“It is,” he assures me. “Well, it will be.”
“What do you mean?”
“At least one of those fuckers is still out there,” he says, his voice and expression going dark. “They’ll get what’s coming to them. Then it’ll be over.”
The elevator slows down and pings to tell us it’s coming up on my floor, and a few seconds later, we come to a stop and the doors open.
He follows me down the hall to my room, and I slip the new key card into the reader. The little light on it changes from red to green, and there’s a soft click as the door unlocks.
“Come in,” I tell him when he doesn’t immediately follow me inside.
The room is exactly how I left it, and more of the tension I’ve been carrying around dissipates as I push the cart over to the spare bed and start unloading the bags.
Xave helps me, and I notice how carefully he handles them. Hopefully our captors were that gentle with my equipment, but something tells me they probably weren’t.
Once the cart is unloaded, Xave pulls it away from the bed. “I’ll put it in the hall on my way out.”
“I’ll grab my key,” I tell him, already heading over to the small safe on the desk.
It’s one of the ones that can be programmed with a new code whenever you want, and I quickly punch in the six numbers I chose when I set the safe up. It pops open, and I pull out my phone, wallet, and the key card.
Leaving my phone and wallet on the table, I close the safe and walk the card back over to where Xave is standing. “Here.”
He takes it, and a strange pulse of electricity dances over my skin as our fingers brush.
“Thanks for this, and for everything,” I say, trying to ignore whatever that was.
“I’d say ‘any time,’ but hopefully that’s the one and only time we get kidnapped together,” he says with a grin.
I huff out a laugh. “Here’s hoping. I’m not sure what your life is like, but that’s about as much excitement as I can handle for a while.”
“I mean, same.” He tucks the card in his pocket. “But knowing me, there’s a high probability I’ll find myself in another bind soon enough. Probably not a ‘getting drugged and kidnapped from a rave’ type of bind, but who knows.”
We stand there for a few beats, just staring at each other. It’s weird, but I don’t want him to go. The idea of being alone right now is freaking me out a bit, and that’s strange as fuck for me.
“Have a good night,” I say before I can do something stupid like ask him to come back after he’s done dealing with everything so I don’t have to be alone.
He tosses me a little smirk. “You too.”
I watch as he pushes the cart out of my room and sink onto the bed as soon as the doors close behind him. I take a few seconds to draw in some deep breaths to center myself.
When I feel a bit more stable, I head over to the minibar so I can get something to drink. I quickly survey my choices, then grab three of the six bottles of water on the bottom shelf. I have nothing against tap water, but I don’t feel like spending the next ten minutes at the sink refilling the tiny glasses they provide for drinking, so bottles it is.
Even though I’m starving, I don’t bother with any of the snacks or food in the minibar and bring the bottles to the desk. Then I sink down on the chair as I crack one of them open and ponder my next move.
I need to eat something, but room service isn’t going to cut it right now. I already took a look at the menu when I checked in, and I’m not in the mood for fancy French cuisine that would require me to order a dozen entrées just to feel full.
Having made up my mind, I grab my phone and check my notifications as I guzzle down most of the water in one go. The cool liquid feels good as it slides down my throat, soothing the bone-deep thirst that’s been plaguing me since I woke up in that cellar until it’s just normal thirst.
I might have been away from my phone for twenty-four hours, but I’m not surprised that I only have a text from one of my sisters and another from my only friend at school waiting for me.
I pause drinking and open my texts.
