He dropped to his knees beside me, and the second his hand slipped across my burning jaw and his thumb found the spot at the corner of my mouth that tasted like copper, the tears blurring my vision started to fall.
“Rabbit,” he murmured, the nickname that had been so vicious before a soft balm to the ends of my frayed nerves now. “Whoever the fuck it was, I’ll—”
“Don’t.” I cut him off, and when his dark brows snapped together in frustration, I flicked my gaze to Gem still standing in the room behind us, wringing his hands and glancing between me and Otto like he wasn’t sure if I wassafeor not. My eyes drifted past him to Til who was on the phone with the police. “I’m not even sure you should be here.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” The venom in the words made my skin tingle, and I shook my head slowly.
“Til called the police.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my lips to his ear so my next words were for him and him alone. “If everything you’ve told me is true, you don’t need to be here when they get here. Just… wait for me. Please?”
Maybe it was the way my voice trembled on the word please, but he pulled back and looked me over… really looked me over.
“Did you stab him with a makeup brush?” The almost incredulous tone of the question forced a giggle from my chest that cracked through the tension I was feeling.
“Yeah. Didn’t know what else to do.” I wanted to tell him it had worked, but I was pretty sure it had actually been the realization that people were coming to the locker room more than the little stab that made him run.
“When you get home, I’m going to show you how to actually kill someone, London.” He lifted his hand and carefully brushed my hair back from my forehead.
“Go on.” I took a shaking breath and pressed my hand into his. The instant the paper of the note touched his palm, his expression blanked slightly. At least I’d had the forethought to give it to him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell the police so they could handle it, but I had a feeling Otto was going to do whatever was necessary to take care of the situation himself.
Which meant that I had to do whatever I could to protect him.
Apparently, that meant hiding evidence.
His fingers closed around the paper and he nodded, leaning in to press his lips softly to the cut at the corner of my mouth.
“I’ll see you soon.”
I could see the reluctance in his gaze when he looked back at me, but the sound of sirens approaching in the distance was enough to push him forward. I wasrightabout this. If he’d been a killer, and whoever he’d been before had leftanyevidence behind, the last thing he needed to do was come face to face with police officers.
Especially when I kept getting into trouble.
Gem waited until Otto was gone before he helped me stand and gently pulled the bloody brush from my hands.
“Uh, your boyfriend is a little scary, London.” His sweet voice was tinged with concern. “He looked like he wanted to put you over his shoulder and take you out of here with him.”
“He probably did,” I answered, aware that the soft warmth blossoming through my chest at the thought still wasn’tnormal. But fuck, the thought of Otto wrapping me up and just… kidnapping me again…
Shit, it was kind of nice.
How fucked up was it that being trapped in a facility was better than being out in the real world?
There wasn’t much for me to tell the police when they finally arrived. Officer Renn was in the lead, and he was looking at me like he was actually kind of tired of seeing me. I understood—I was getting a little tired of having to see the police myself. In a smaller town like ours, it made sense that the same face showing up more than once would be enough to earn a glare or two.
At least there wasn’t much to tell. I wrote it off as a client who was probably a little obsessed with me.
“That seems to happen a lot with you, doesn’t it?” Renn’s voice was only a little full of accusation.
“It’s nothing I do on purpose,” I offered, and then held up the makeup brush I’d used as a weapon. “I stabbed him with this… I’m not really good at self-defense, but maybe you can… I don’t know… use his blood or something to figure out who it was.”
I’d seen that kind of stuff on the television enough times to assume they could do that… even if I knew the TV wasn’t exactly real life. Since my entire world was based on past lives and a really weird mystery revenge plot at the moment, I wasn’t going to worry too much about reality.
“You stabbed him with a makeup brush?” It was kind of funny that he sounded just as incredulous as Otto had, even as he bagged the clear plastic and handed it off to his partner.
“I’m not very good at self-defense, okay? At least he left.” I sounded as defensive as I felt, and my brows snapped together when he pressed.
