Page 58 of The Next Lie

She does not fight me. That should please me. Instead, it makes something ache.

I pull the covers over us and draw her into my side until her head rests on my chest. Her body goes soft by degrees, one breath at a time. The old house settles around us. Somewhere beyond my door, Blackwood House holds its silence.

She falls asleep with my arm around her and her hand against my ribs.

I don’t sleep. I listen to her breathe. I listen for Ever coming back. I listen for every old ghost in this city that might decide tonight is the night to test my locks.

Reva does not dream of closets. Not that I can tell.

Good. Let her sleep. Let the house hold. Let the Syndicate gather its dead prayers and sharpen its knives.

Tonight, she is in my bed. Tonight, the door is locked.

And if the past wants her back, it can come through me first.

CHAPTER TWELVE

REVA

Morning comes too early. I didn’t sleep badly…I’m just not entirely sure I slept at all.

At some point, just before dawn, I slide out from under Nash’s arm. He is asleep on his stomach, one hand still reaching for the place I was. Even unconscious, the man is possessive. It should annoy me more than it does.

I mean…it does annoy me.

It also does other things to me, which is deeply inconvenient and even more annoying this early in the morning. I want coffee.

I find my leggings on the floor, drag them on, and then grab Shiloh’s hoodie from where Nash tossed it last night. I grumble soundlessly the entire time.

This is also ridiculous and annoying. I came to New Orleans with a duffel bag and a death wish, not a capsule wardrobe, and I am now rotating through stolen men’s clothing like an emotionally unstable raccoon.

I need clothes. Actual clothes. Underwear, more T-shirts, a few more pairs of leggings.

Clothes that do not smell like one of the men currently dismantling my life and putting it back together with sex and secrets.

I creep out before Nash wakes up enough to ask where I’m going. Maybe that’s cowardly. Maybe it’s survival. Maybe I just need five minutes where no one in this house looks at me like they can see all the places I cracked yesterday. It kinda feels like that’s beginning to be an everyday occurrence, though.

I set the coffee pot to brew, then step out onto the patio. The flagstones behind the kitchen are wet with early humidity, the sky just starting to lighten beyond the trees. The marsh beyond the property sits low and silver in the morning haze. I have yet to see an alligator, but I bet one’s out there, lurking just beneath the surface of the water.

My phone feels like a lead weight in my hand. I’ve been staring at Cal’s name on the screen since I stepped outside.

My thumb hovers over the call button. My three rubber bands are back on my wrist, and I flick the top one against the sensitive skin of my inner arm.

Snap.

The sting is sharp and immediate. Necessary.

I need to be grounded before I talk to the only man who has ever called me daughter in my adult memory, because right now, I’m pretty sure he’s also the man who has been lying to me for fifteen years.

Sighing, I press the call button.

The buzz of his ring tone cuts through the quiet morning.

One.

Two.

Three.