All I can think is that something is wrong. Something big.
For once, I wish it was something happening at top volume.
While Enzo's place is fairly open, it is very well insulated, and voices don't tend to carry well.
There's no word said in one room that you can usually hear from another, if it's a room, that is, as a lot of his place is modern and open plan.
I keep standing there, right at the top of the stairs on the ground floor, where the foyer is. I know I should turn and go back to my room and come back down later.
What the hell? Do I think he's going to do something to her? Hurt her?
That's so laughable I do almost turn.
Enzo isn't violent. At least, if he is, it's not to me or his sister or anyone he cares about, because deep inside, I know he just might kill to keep us safe.
Might?
He has.
Those men who broke in. He killed them right there and then.
I swallow down the sudden rush of bile in my mouth.
Shit, I'm only standing here because the thought of that soup appealed, and the craving for those saltines got too much.
The soup is something I know settles, and with Enzo, it'd be from a good place. I like matzo balls. The saltines are ordinarily something I don't tend to eat, too bland, too dry, but now they appeal, probably for that reason.
Or did appeal.
But I have to eat. It's not just me that needs nutrition. And I know that.
Even through the nausea that the fighting brings on, the hunger buzzes like pins and needles.
Not hunger, exactly, but the knowledge that I need to eat.
Hells.
What I should do is just keep going.
Or get in the elevator and take it to the kitchen floor. That way, it'll open and announce me at the same time.
After all, it's easy enough to cool the heat in the kitchen just by me walking in. And I've dithered up here long enough to know I'm not going to turn and walk away.
He won't hurt her.
Yet, I'm protective, anyway.
He loves her, but she needs more than one person.
Whatever they're arguing about is big enough to make the conversation urgent, harsh, almost brutal.
And I can't hear what it is.
But all the emotions sting the air, and the urgency in her tone wraps around me.
His anger rubs against my skin and psyche.
Maybe it's the urgency that I've never heard like thisbetween them before that makes me take another step, then another, down.
