I shake my head, vanishing the depressing thoughts when the microwave dings, letting me know Vaughn’s meal is piping hot.
He’s by the small table in the corner of the room, toying with his fork. He disappears inside his head often, staring at the TV screen as if it holds the answers to the world’s biggest questions. He surveys the street, but his mind drifts elsewhere.
“Enjoy,” I say, setting the plate before him.
He gives me a rare, bright smile. So bright it crinkles the skin around his eyes as he shoves a spoonful into his mouth. “Fuck,” he hisses, inhaling air through his mouth. “Hot.”
“You’d think I didn’t need to warn a fifty-year-old that food straight out of the microwave might be hot.”
“You’d think,” he agrees, dropping the fork with a loud clatter.
I take a seat beside him, angling my body to watch the TV. “It’s been quiet the past few days.”
He reaches over, taking my hand in his, eyes boring into mine with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. “Where’s your food, sweetheart? You should eat.”
My gaze falls to where his thumb swipes my knuckles. Words are stuck in my throat, a shudder passing through me and raising the hairs at the back of my neck... not in a good way. Far from it. The endearment itself would fly over my head if it didn’t sound so... wrong.
It’s not the first time he called me that. And the more he does, the more out of place I feel. There’s a heaviness in his tone when he says that word. Something loaded.Disturbing.
My appetite dies a sad death.
“I’ll eat later.”
He nods, pushing his food around the plate to cool it off. “I don’t like it. Two weeks is a long time, Bianca. It’s not like I’ve taken extra precautions. They should have no issues locating us with a bit of digging.”
“Maybe they’re not looking for us anymore?”
Vaughn scoffs, shaking his head. “What wouldn’t I give to be this naïve again?” he mumbles.
“I’m not naïve.”
“Yes, you are, but it’s a good thing. It means there’s innocence in you. You’re not tainted by the gore. You still believe there’s good in this world, good in the monsters walking this earth. You believe that just because people have no meaningful reason to hurt you, they won’t. It means you’re trusting. A beautiful... butnaïvenotion.”
“You talk about them all as if they’re killing machines without a shred of morality or honor.”
“Because they are. They’re—”
“I wasn’t finished,” I snap, rolling my shoulders back.
Deep down, I know Vaughn’s been nothing but kind to me. He risked his life for me. Destroyed his relationship with Hailey in exchange for my freedom.
I’m grateful for everything he’s done, but I fucking hate when he treats me like I’m five years old, incapable of grasping the obvious. And more than anything, I hate when he talks over me.
“If they were all that evil and ruthless, you’d be dead by now, Vaughn. You’d bedead,and I’d be dead alongside you, or at best, working at a brothel.”
Blaze could’ve killed Vaughn the night he arrived with Willard’s men to exchange the evidence for Violet’s visa.
I grit my teeth, a little annoyed that I know this much about the criminals I’m running away from. Vaughn doesn’t let much slip, but he painted me a picture when I threw a temper tantrum three days into our new, on-the-run reality.
I think he knew I’d leave if he didn’t find a compelling argument that’d convince me to stay. Telling me about Hailey’s accident, the dangers she faced, her captivity at Blaze’s, and Violet’s sex-slavery did the trick.
Ending up like either one of them is the last thing I want. I don’t have a death wish.
“There’s a reason I’m still alive, Bianca,” he reiterates what he’s told me many times before.
I just don’t know what it is yet, I finish for him in my head.
“I just don’t know what it is yet.”
