Page 705 of One More Kiss
My gut churned with uncertainty. Pushing onto my toes, I scooted past their office door and ducked into the doorway and spiral stairway leading to my room.
Springing Marissa was a test. Nothing more, nothing less.
For fuck’s sake, it even came on a scroll with the signature wax seal scorpion symbol. It’s not like everyone had them. Only the elders and members of the founding families within the society had been bestowed the antiquated traditional tools from the early days of the society.
Marissa was fine. Her father was the district attorney and part of a founding family. There’s no way anyone within the society would target his daughter for sinister reasons.
None.
But my hands shook, my skin grew cold and clammy telling me I didn’t believe my own reassurances.
I texted the number I’d been given as a contact for my test.
Where’s Marissa?
Wavydots danced on the screen. My fingers turned white where I gripped my cell, the seconds ticking by agonizingly slow while waiting for their reply.
That’s not your concern.
My breath stutteredand fire blazed through my veins, leaving flushed skin in its wake. I should let it go. Needed to let it go or I’d be risking the future I’d been dreaming about.
That night, the scents of stale cigarettes and cheap whiskey, the laugh, the rank breath wafting across my silk-hooded face, it all came rushing back, and my chest squeezed with the flashes of fear I felt that night, much to my shame.
If I’d put another woman in that position—if I’d handed her over to monsters—God, my skin felt too tight and my head buzzed with a rush of guilt and fear.
Just tell me that she’s okay. That’s all I need.
The three dots waved again,a clock winding down to my fate.
Maybe to Marissa’s.
She’s taken care of.
A shiver racedup my spine, my instincts screaming at the words that could be nothing.
Or everything.
And maybe Marissa’s end.
At my hands.
What does that mean?
I stoodin the sliver of moonlight spilling through my gauzy curtains, waiting for the dots. When they didn’t come, I chanted for them, prayed for them—grew desperate for words on a screen to give me absolution.
But they never came.
Stepping up to my window, I gazed out at the darkness trying to obliterate the images that had begun cascading through my mind of what could be happening to her right at this very moment.
Or maybe it was done.
My gaze landed on a dark form standing just barely out of the light of a streetlamp. My heart kicked up and throbbed behind my ribs until I felt the beat flutter in my throat. I brushed the curtain aside, but never took my eyes off him.
His hand slid from his pocket, and taking all the time in the world, like he had nothing to fear if he was discovered, he held up his thumb and index finger, taking aim at me and jerked them up once like a gun.
With his imaginary shot fired, he turned and faded into the night.
