Page 58 of Always Watching
And there it is.
The moment I was trying to avoid.
The thing I wanted to keep from him—the thing I needed to tell him.
“Ranen, I—”
“You’re… North…” He stumbles forward, his steps uneasy, his lips trembling. “You’re hurt.”
You’re hurt, he says.
Notyou’re a monster.
Notyou’re a killer.
Justyou’re hurt.
His fingers are so gentle when he takes my hand and pulls me over the dead body on the floor so he can look at my arm. He’s pale and shaking, but he’stouching me.
“Ranen,” I say his name carefully, because I realize something is happening inside me. Something more feral than the kill I just made. “Stop.”
“No, you’re hurt. I need to call a doctor, or…” His eyes drop to the ground and he goes even paler. “No, I can’t do that. They’d see… I need to wrap it up, at least, I—”
“Ranen,” I pull my arm out of his grip and raise my bloody hand, taking his face and turning his eyes up to look at me. It streaks crimson across his pale skin, and that thing in my chest twists again. “I just killed someone.”
“I know. I know, and it’s okay. It’s okay, because you’re okay, and I’m okay. It’s—”
I can’t think straight. My blood is on his skin, and there’s a dead man behind me, and Ranen isn’t pushing me away. He isn’t calling the cops.
They’d see, he said.
Like he wants to keep me safe.
Like he wants to keep this a secret.
He…
My lips crash forward, my tongue demanding entrance into his mouth before I have a chance to think about it.
It’swrong. He was just nearly attacked again—he was hit. I justkilledsomeone, and there’s a dead body on the ground behind us, and all I can think about is crawling inside his skin and eating him from the inside out because he wasworried about meinstead of pushing me away.
He looked my monster in the eyes and still took my hand.
He sawmeand didn’t run.
I’ve never wanted to keep something as much as Ineededto keep him.
He’s stiff in my arms for just a second, and I worry I read the situation wrong. And then a small, wild, desperate sound escapes his throat and his arms wrap around me, his mouth opening to my demands. My tongue plunges into the heat of him, licking deep enough I wonder whether he can breathe around it. It’s not enough.
I need more.
I sweep everything off his countertop and lift him without thinking, and my blood makes him nearly slip in my arms, spattering in droplets across the counter as a low sound tears from his chest.
“North—” He gasps my name when I dive to his throat, sucking a bruise against his skin like a man possessed. “North, your arm.”
“Don’t care,” I rumble, and then bite down on the juncture between his shoulder and neck. It makes him cry out and leaves perfect imprints of my teeth against his skin.
It’s still not enough.
