Page 124 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

Blood splatters out of Kendrick Walsh’s mouth. Crimson slips through my fingertips, and as much as torture excites me, I’m too worked up to care. Astin tells me to calm down because I’m killing him without answers, and Alad tells me I should leave and let them deal with it while I check on Pandora.

The thing is, I have a fucking itch to scratch, and nothing else will satisfy me. I want to sink my fist into his chest, grab his heart and twist it. The hunger won’t quench itself until otherwise.

“How did you find out about Pandora?” I say, pacing back and forth in front of him.

Kendrick Walsh, a man with more hair on his body than his head, tanned skin, red eyes and orange hair, sits on a stainless steel chair. I bound his hands behind him, but three of his fingers hang on strings of flesh, ready to fall off. Burn marks, sliced flesh, and swelling bruises blister over his body.

“Maya,” he seethes. “She put a hit out on her that was too irresistible to refuse.”

I twitch a smile. So it goes back to her. I wish I had killed her slowly, if I had known this would happen.

Alad hands me his handkerchief when I stand beside him. As I wipe the blood from my hands, I tell him, “Get as much information as possible from him and then kill him.”

Astin eyes me. “You don’t want to do the honours.”

I sigh. “As Alad said, I have more important matters to attend to.”

I leave the interrogation room. Senri stands outside, thanking me for my services.

Before I leave, I tell Senri, “Make sure you tell Walkyer I did my job, and I’m now leaving to head back home.”

I drive the car back to the entrance, my hands tightening on the wheel and my teeth gritting when memories come back of what I witnessed. The first time I had to take care of someone, and I couldn’t fucking do that. I should have ignored Alad, gone with her, and never left her damn sight.

“Fuck,” I hiss.

When I get to the ship, I knock on Pandora’s door. There is no answer. A grimace grips my face, and applying enough pressure, I kick the door until it swings open. Her room is dark, with the blinds closed, shutting out the night, and the bedsheets tucked in, untouched.

“Pandora?”

I open her bathroom, but it’s empty. When I open the closet, there are still clothes in the drawers, and nothing looks missing. She’s likely roaming the ship…or…my room.

Moving up to the third floor, taking the steps two at a time, I enter my room, expecting her to be there. It’s empty. A crunching pain hits my chest, and the steadiness of my heart pounds, breaking against my ribs at the thought of her fleeing, leaving me.

I pull my phone out of my pocket to call Alad when a sliver of breath hitches in the dead of night. My focus settles on the closet. The doors creak as I open them, and I look up to the top shelf. I step onto the dresser, push myself up and stare at the woman curled underneath a blanket. Her brows knit together, and her body trembles as if she has the shakes.

I sigh. “What am I going to do with you?”

As cautiously as I can be, I push myself up, move my legs around her, and lie beside her. She squirms, grumbling in her sleep, but I doubt she will wake. Alad gave her pain medication for the burns on her shoulders.

What do I do now?

I stare at the back of her head and her dark hair. Her shoulder rises and falls when she breathes steadily. Soft breaths suck in and out of her mouth. Pandora’s beside me, and I don’t know how to react.

What do I do?

A shudder works through her, trembling her again until she’s shivering. My fingers twitch, and before I know what I’m doing, my body reacts faster than my mind. I send warmth across my hand, enough for it to feel like an electric blanket, and I place my arm over her body, moving closer to her until I’m pressed up against her.

She grumbles. “Reen…”

I smile. “I don’t know about you, little creature, but the likelihood of my hesitating has increased to fifty percent.”

Coldness bites like a spider across my cheek. My brow furrows, and when I open my eyes, Pandora’s facing me. The blankets are still tucked around her, with only her head and arm escaping the confines. Her brown eyes search, scanning my face as if she’s analysing me.

“Morning,” she says, a slight smile on her face.

I smile, too, until my gaze trails across her arm and to the redness throbbing across her shoulder. “Does it hurt? Do you need more medication?”

“It’s stinging,” Pandora agrees.