He was good.
Terrifyingly good.
I felt a slight tug on my scalp and realized he was touching my hair. In my mind's eye, where I could still see, I could almost picture him rubbing a lock of it between his thumb and forefinger. "You're not making it very easy to keep you alive," he mused, almost to himself..
The arrogance of that statement made my jaw ache. I hated the implication that I was some fragile thing that needed minding. I hated even more that my heart was hammering a traitorous rhythm against my ribs from the electric thrill of being this close to the fire.
With a jerk of my head, my hair slid from his grasp. "I don't remember asking you to keep me alive."
"That's because you didn't."
"Then why are you here?" I challenged, angling my body toward the sound of him. "Why is what I do any of your business?"
Silence. I could hear his breathing now, slow and controlled. Could feel the heat of him in the cool night air and knew he was standing way too close.
"You should be more careful," he said finally. "Walking into dark alleys and confronting strangers."
"I wouldn't have to if you'd just stop following me."
He didn't respond immediately. When he did, his voice had gone rough around the edges. "You could get hurt doing things like this."
My voice was careful when I asked after a moment, "Are you going to hurt me?"
His answer was almost immediate. "Not tonight."
The blood rushed in my ears, making it hard to hear. "You still haven't told mewhyyou've been following me." I didn't think he'd give me a straight answer, so I was slightly surprised when he did.
"You were in the alley beside the restaurant."
I frowned. Feigning confusion. "I take the alley to the bus stop almost every night."
"Not every night.Thatnight."
Looked like it was my turn to decide whether or not to tell the truth. I paused for a moment, thinking through my decision, before deciding it was probably best to stop the charade before it went too far. Besides, I had the feeling he'd see right through me. "I didn't see anything," I whispered.
"No. You didn't. Not with your eyes."
The way he said it made my stomach flip.
"You were there?" I asked quietly.
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Yes."
The word hung between us, heavy and dangerous.
"Did you kill someone?"
"No."
Until this very moment, I really hadn't known for sure what had happened that night. I'd only suspected. But the tone of his voice told me way more than his one word answer. "Did you see who did?"
"Raven." He said my name like a warning. "Stop asking questions you don't want the answers to."
I didn't ask how he knew my name. He probably had a whole file on me. "Maybe I do want the answers."
"No," he said. "You don't. Because if you did, you would've called the police the moment you got home that night."
