I suppose I hadn’t either. Ames used to tease me that I lacked the part of my brain that registered danger. I simply accepted every new twist with a blindness he claimed was going to get me in trouble one day.
Selling my soul to a demon probably wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but, also, maybe it was.
Marcus has those sensors.
He’s been part of a much darker world where your senses kept you alive. But he’s so calm.
“Let’s clean up, get you breakfast.”
Maybe he’s embarrassed.
Maybe he’s in shock and doesn’t know what happened or how to process.
Whatever he’s thinking, I don’t question it when I let him pull me to my feet. His hands stay on me, gripping me to him like he’s too afraid to let go. Even when he stoops to scoop up my dress from the floor and drag it down over my head, he keeps a tight hold on my fingers.
“Stay with me.” He says, pulling me along to his closet. I’m made to stand practically on his feet when he dresses quickly. “Let’s go out for breakfast.”
I don’t like that idea.
Every part of me wants to find the demon and demand we get to the next person on my list, but Marcus is a man on a mission. He’s set in his destination when he drags me forcibly from the room at a pace that has me practically running to keep up.
“Marcus, I don’t have shoes,” I protest.
“I’ll carry you.”
“Or a jacket.”
His grip on me tightens. “I’ll buy you one while we’re out.”
It’s insane behavior. Out of character. Even before the boys were murdered, Marcus very seldom agreed to venture out of the house. Not because he was some creepy shut in, but he never trusted the idea of being out in the open for too long. In the last seven years, our ‘going out for breakfast’ could be counted on a single finger.
This.
This would be the single raised finger.
“Marcus—?”
His big hand closes around the brass knob and we’re assaulted by a hard slap of Pacific air serrated with knives. I gasp and shrink into Marcus’s side.
But he doesn’t pause. Barely hesitates. I’m scooped up into his arms and marched with long strides across the driveway.
Brittle, gnawing air cuts into every inch of exposed skin. It claws at my hair and scuttles down the front of my dress. I cling to Marcus, face hidden in the curve of his neck. The air sits lodged in my throat. A tight knot of pain as my skin is flayed from the bone.
“Pardonne-moi, mon p’tit.”
I hear the crunch of snow beneath his strides over the howl of the wind. It’s nearly muffled by the violent clack of naked branches beneath the force.
Somehow without losing his grip on me, he yanks open the door to his Escalade and sets me inside. Lovingly, but with a rush that has my backside hitting the seat without ceremony.
The interior is as cold as the frozen world outside the frosted windows. Without heat, I sit bundled and partially naked, watching Marcus rush around the hood to the driver’s side.
“Where are we going?” I pant, clutching my arms around my shivering frame and watching him fumble, stabbing the key into the ignition.
“Away.”
Without elaborating, he twists the engine over and hits the gas.
I try to glance back at the dark silhouette of Usher House gathering like a harbinger against the cloudy overcast, but Marcus has us barreling through the gates at speeds that have me clutching at the door handle.
