“Aren’t you going to ask?”
“Do you want me to?”
Did I? I wasn’t sure. Perhaps I just expected it so much that the idea of him not questioning what I’d done to that corrupted, of not addressing it, felt strange and oddly unfinished. He cared about little, but did he really not give a damn about how I’d done something previously thought impossible?
“You told me not to ask questions I don’t really want the answer to. Is that all this is?”
He smirked, his smile seeming slightly realer than before. “You want to hear the other part of that advice? Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
“So you know what I did? And how?”
He plopped himself down in a chair, far enough away to keep me relaxed. “What you did was pretty damn obvious, don’t you think? You pulled the corruption out of a corrupted until theywere so weak they were almost dead. You also nearly got yourself killed doing that.” He leveled a not-at-all friendly look my way, an unexpected expression for him. “Don’t do that again.”
“Trust me, I don’t plan on it.”
He offered a wide smile. “Good. Glad we’re on the same page there. If that happens again, you just stay back.”
“And let you die? Not a problem.”
“Wonderful. Well, you haven’t eaten, so let’s order some food then head back to the compound.” He rose, slower than usual, but I took nothing for granted when it came to Carter.
He might seem stupid and slow, but I’d peeked beneath that carefully crafted exterior now and then, caught glimpses of something darker and far more dangerous beneath the surface. I got the feeling everything he did was to get others right where he wanted them.
And I refused to play the part of a pawn.
He opened the door to the bedroom of what had to be another suite, but instead of an empty doorway, two bodies fell into the room.
Kenyon and Ingram tangled, thankfully with Ingram on top. Kenyon’s massive frame might have crushed the stealth expert, after all. Ingram hopped up and brushed himself off, looking around as though confused as to how he’d gotten here.
Smooth…
Kenyon lacked that same ability to play things off, however, and lumbered to his feet, a goofy grin on his face as he rubbed the back of his neck. “You should make more noise when you’re going to open a door,” Kenyon said.
“You shouldn’t listen in through doors.”
“Listen in?” Ingram snorted, dragging his fingers along the doorframe as though that had become the answer to all questions in the universe. “We were just checking the structural surety of the building. Doyouwant to stay somewhere unsafe?”
I stared at them and wondered exactly how this could be normal already. Their absurdity helped ground me, helped to erase the nightmares, that voice. It also eased the heaviness inside me from the extra corruption that my body still worked to process and get rid of. It didn’t take it away, but it gave me something else to focus on.
“And how does it rate?” Carter asked.
Ingram pressed his lips together, then shrugged. “Good enough.” His answer went to show he had no damn idea what he was talking about, something that I found charming for a reason I couldn’t understand.
“Since the hotel isn’t going to fall apart, why don’t you all help me order and set up food before we leave?”
Ingram’s and Kenyon’s expressions reminded me of children given a task when they were bored—begrudging acceptance. Still, they followed him out, leaving the door open.
Just when I thought it was over, when their voices trailed off to parts of the suite I couldn’t see, when I released a breath, I spotted one more.
Shear stood just outside the door, behind where the others had been. He stared at me with an intensity that said he hadn’t been part of their conversation, perhaps hadn’t even heard it at all. Something about that expression had me wrapping my arms around myself, as though that shielded me, as though it somehow protected me from those piercing, shockingly blue eyes of his.
He knows.
The words whispered through my mind—mine, not his—drawing a shiver through me. It was in his expression, in the serious set of his features, in the way he studied me. I didn’t know exactly what he’d seen, what he’d figured out, but I knew he’d picked up something he didn’t care for.
I had secrets, but I didn’t think they’d stay secret for long.
And when they came out?
