Page 20 of Into the Dark
Suddenly, my mind clears and settles. Something drops. Like a penny, only louder. A ton weight on a concrete floor.
I love you. I need you. That’s all that matters.
Those were Jake’s words to me in the kitchen that day. Words I ignored. Not again. Never again.
“I need…I need to go after him.” It’s an almost whisper, but I see Rob smile at me and then nod.
“Go,” she says.
I move fast before another thought flits through my head. Mark shouts after me. Jake’s jacket slips off my shoulders as I run, so I take it off, holding it in one hand and the length of my dress in the other. People stare at me, probably wondering where the fire is, but I keep running toward the main entrance at the opposite end of the long hall.
I’m too late. He’s gone and I’m too late. It can’t be too late.
When I reach the front entrance, I take the short flight of stairs down and run across the bridge, out onto the pebbled circular esplanade in front of the castle.
“You okay there, love?” the parking attendant says from behind me.
I’m looking for Jake’s car, but since he arrived with the night guests there’s no way it would be parked this close to the castle. I hold up his jacket to the man as though he’s a sniffer dog and the jacket will help locate him somehow.
“A guy. He just came out here. He wasn’t wearing a jacket.”
“White shirt? Beard? Yeah, he went that way. The overspill is over there, love.” He indicates through a break in the hedges to our left.
I thank him and start running again, darting across the pebbles clumsily in my heels.
There must be another forty or fifty cars parked neatly in rows on the grass of the overspill. Why the hell have so many people driven to a bloody wedding? What’s wrong with them? Don’t they like free champagne? I stop in the middle of a small clearing between the cars and turn on the spot, trying to catch my breath. Silver. Silver Audi, I think. If he even still drives a silver car.
All I see are rows and rows of black and white cars. I’m too late. He’s gone. I left it too late. He’s gone. Again.
As I turn to go back the way I came, a set of headlights from one of the parked cars flicks on, startling me. I spin around to the source.
They belong to a black car—no, a very dark gray car, which is bigger than I recall. When I bring my arm up to shield my eyes the headlights switch off immediately. Instead the amber lights from the castle’s exterior shine directly on the windscreen, and he’s staring straight at me. I’m not sure how I could have missed him before. My panic recedes, but it’s replaced with something else, an edginess, one that’s hot and fluttery. One that wants. I can’t make out his expression from here, and that makes me feel very, very exposed.
The parking lot is quiet, the sounds of laughter and music from the castle drifting toward me, but it’s really just the beating of my heart and my labored breaths I can hear. Finally, the car door opens and he steps out, his shoes crunching on the noisy gravel. He closes the door behind him and stares at me across the short distance. The look in his eye is dark and hot, but there’s a warning there too. He looks dangerous again. But I’m not scared of his danger. I never have been.
“You forgot your jacket,” I say, breathless.
I see the smallest smile lift the side of his mouth. “I know.” I hear him sigh. “What are you doing, Alex?”
“I don’t know. But I know I don’t want you to go.” My voice is firm but not entirely stable.
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead he lets his gaze drink me in for a few long seconds. Hungry. Hot. “Why not?” I hear the faintest of faint cracks in his voice, and it almost undoes me.
“You know why.” I take a step closer to him.
“Be careful, baby,” he warns as he takes a step toward me.
I almost laugh. “It’s a little late for that now, don’t you think?”
He shakes his head. “No, not yet. But if you say or do what I think you’re about to, then yeah, it will be. I promise you.”
I’m not even sure what he means by that, and the fact he says it so confidently, so coolly, irritates me. Why is he always the one in control? Why, for once, can’t I dictate the play between us?
I close the distance, the uneven surface beneath my feet making my movement ungraceful. “You weren’t going to come here tonight, Rob told me, but you did. Why?” I look up into his eyes.
A look crosses his face. It looks almost like…nervousness. “I told you. I wanted to see you.”
“You wanted to see me.”
