“I’m not your girl,” I say through clenched teeth.
He leans down until his lips brush the shell of my ear and whispers so that only I can hear.
“Semantics.”
Elliot leads me from the common room with a hand resting at the small of my back until we reach the first set of stairs, at which point he falls behind, gesturing for me to move ahead of him. The stairwell leads us up to the residential floor, but rather than veering east toward his room, he guides me across the catwalk to the west wing.
“Where are we going?” I ask as we come up to a door with the words “Ranked Only” written on it.
“Someplace private,” he says.
He shoulders the door open and waits for me to pass through before moving ahead to open another. This one has a key, which he fishes out of his pocket. It dangles from the chain hooked to his belt loop, clanking noisily as he works the lock.
“Sorry, I’m late,” he says, once he gets it open. “I was trying to?—”
“It’s fine. Dame told me.”
He nods, shutting the door behind me, but making no move to lock it back.
“Is it a pain in the ass?” I ask.
“The paperwork? Yeah. Every fuckin’ time.”
“You don’t have to do that for me. You’ve already done enou?—”
“It’s not for you,” he interrupts.
“What?”
“Filing a challenge,” Elliot says. “It’s not for you. It’s for the pack. If we file a challenge, they’ll have to send a formal notice to inquire with every member. Keeps them from hauling us in without notice.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“It’ll help slow their progress, but it isn’t just for you.”
I follow him blindly, as I have been for the last few days, and after three more doors and two long, narrow hallways, he stops in front of a plain-looking wooden door and nods for me to open it.
Once again, there is no lock, and as the door swings open, I can see why.
There’s nothing of value in here either. Not unless you count the two well-loved sofas and the TV mounted on the wall with a video game console on the floor.
“What is this?” I ask, thumbing through the stack of video games set along the coffee table.
There are at least thirty of them in here, mixed with a few DVD cases.
“This is where Dame and I hang out when they start pissing us off. He’s the only other person who has a key to the ranked floor, so no one will bother us here.”
I take a turn around the room.
It smells faintly of mint and sandalwood, the perfect blend of Elliot and Dame, and the warm wood tones give it a particularly relaxing air. In the corner, a desk sits with neat piles of paper stacked in three of the four corners. The largest pile, stacked about two inches high, has the words “Official Inquiry” written in red on the front, with the Inquisition seal stamped in the bottom-right corner.
I bite my lip, trying to ignore the big red lettering.
I know I shouldn’t ask. It’s better if I don’t know. But I keep imagining Grey’s rotting body coming back to life to vomit up the truth, and Elliot chained in a dungeon somewhere in exchange. And the longer I look at it, the bigger the letters seem to become until I can no longer keep myself from asking the question that’s been rolling around in my mind all week.
“What did you do to him?”
“Who?” Elliot asks, voice distant as he stands watching me from the doorway.
