“You’re so pretty, Bunny,” he hums, softening his eyes to roam the leakage I’m actively wiping away.
“Oh,” I squeak, my shoulders turning themselves inward. “That’s really nice of you. Thank you. Bu-”
“But,” he interjects, cocking his head.
But Razor will kill you if he sees you alone with me.
“But… I-” directing a thumb over my shoulder, I laugh awkwardly and take another step away from him “-need to catch back up with my friends. I just ran in for lip gloss.”
“Wait,” he rips his hands from his pockets, digging one back in to fish around for something. “If you ever want to get breakfast or catch a movie at the Drive-In, call me.”
The white card getting stretched in my direction carousels my head.
I don’t know why I take it. Or why he’s smiling like he just got to the center of a Tootsie Pop. But I think I’m going to throw up from the nerves numbing my hands and flooding arsenic over my tongue.
He steps between my feet, slipping a solo hand around to my lower back and bending down to deliver his lips to my ear. “Don’t tell your boyfriend.”
Horror turns my mouth down, widely staring off at the single spotlight that’s usually pointed at me on stage. Thankfully, he doesn’t linger. He lets that be the last thing exchanged in this encounter and leaves my tent.
From what happened earlier with Xene—I think I’d be putting his life at risk if I even considered calling him.
I don’t want to. But I am curious to know who carries around hefty, fancy cards in their pocket. So, I twist the card around, and the badge logo stamped front and center in black ink sends chills up my arms.
Junior Clyde. Homicide.
So… he really would be able to help me get answers.
What if he already knows and that’s why he’s poking around? Maybe that’s how he knew I leftVoreand just “happened” to run into me at the library because he’s already been watching us.
I’m going to be sick. I’ve never felt like I had the truth at my fingertips and now I’m not sure I even want it.
But I deserve it.
Turning on my heel, my own voice eats at me, absently exiting the curtains and tucking his card into my back pocket.
Homicide. If he did know, why would Homicide be lurking around and questioning me?
“BUNNY!”
Razor’s guttural, distant shout blows my eyes wide, stiffly pivoting to a sight that launches my heart somewhere far from this realm.
The flickering glows of noxious orange are haloing him prowling on predacious hunt, his height looming over everyone in the way of catching his prey. He has his helmet locked in his hand, like he deserted his bike the second the trapdoor released him from his cage—leaving the face of reaping death to be hunting me down through the spreading crowd.
I really am disturbed. Because that irrepressible thrum for him sparks up between my thighs, even though he’s someone I need to be staying on high alert with.
Hysteria explodes like a bomb, entrancing my legs to start kicking at high speed. Running is stupid. He’ll catch me, maybe make me do something that ends with my eyes rolling so far back I completely forget what I need to be questioning.
But that sounds like what the doctor ordered.
Pounding against the pavement as hard as I can, the drum of my heart flutters a laugh off my tongue, lunging and jumping around the groups hanging out by the cycling Ferris wheel.
Flickering orange mars my sight, convincing my prey driven brain that the pavement is giving out beneath me.
I don’t have any choice other than to fight through it and keep going. As thrilling it is to have my spine slithering in my body from his impending presence, him finding the number I’m running away with is not optional.
He can’t. I can’t let him. At least not until I find out what this guy’s intentions truly are.
Maintaining my hustle, I heave for air, veering around the scattered bodies filtering in and out of the admission gates, then cut right, fling open the gate, and trample through the clearing until the porch light spears as my savior.
