Page 106 of Pink Ink
“Woah, hey.” Maddox holds my weight. “I’ve got you, love.”
Everything is throbbing. I groan, latching onto the soft material of his clothes. My head hurts like a bitch, and the tea is making waves up my esophagus. He has me back in his arms and carries me through the house before I have a chance to argue.
“We weren’t done talking,” I grumble, squeezing my eyes shut. The harsh light is making it feel like my eyeballs are being scooped right out of my head.
“Tomorrow,” he grunts.
My eyes drift open just enough to catch the worry across his face. The mattress dips beneath my weight, and creaks when he wrestles the clothes off my frame. “What are you doing?” I ask when he unbuttons my skirt.
“Would you rather sleep in these clothes, or mine?”
My lips part, catching sight of his coat on the nearby chair. This ishisroom. “Sleep?Here?You…”
“Any murderer worth half his salt wouldn’t kill you while you’re wearing their clothes. That would be a forensics nightmare.”
What the fuck. “That doesn’t reassure me in the slightest.”
He shrugs. “Do with that what you will, Miss Sinaga.”
I shove him with the little energy I have. “I’ll kill you if you kill me.”
“That would be my preferred way to go.” I see his amusement through the darkness.
He tugs my skirt down my legs, and my tights follow suit. My head and stomach swim as I wait for Maddox to return. Without a word, he slides a pair of sweats up my legs, and eases his T-shirt over my head.
“I lied,” I pant as he lowers me onto the bed, placing a stack of pillows behind me—probably to keep me from choking on my own vomit.
He falters. “What is it?”
“I’m not fine, I think I’m concussed.”
Chuckling, he pulls the blanket up to my chin. “It’s a curse, always being right.”
REYNA
Not to be dramatic or anything, but I really need to see a doctor.
Today, ideally.
Actually, I change my mind. I might push it out for another week. See if it improves on its own before I fork over copious funds to receive basic medical care.
I don’t think it’s normal for anyone’s head to hurt this bad. Maddox owes me Advil, Tylenol, Xanax, and antihistamines (just in case) for the shit I’ve experienced in the past twenty-four hours.
Groaning, I inch onto my side. I think my ribs are broken, bruised, or I possibly slept wrong. Either way, I’m going to be out of action for the foreseeable future.
Peeling my eyes open, I squint against the sliver of light seeping in from beneath the door. It penetrates to the very back of my eyeballs like a damn ice pick. Pain zaps through my body as I attempt to stand. It takes three tries to make it up onto my very unsteady feet.
My lids fall closed to protect me from the light. I have to head toward the door using nothing but my memory and the will of the gods that I don’t knock into something. My heavy legs and weak knees almost send me tumbling twice in my mission to get to the room directly across from me, thinking Maddox—or the bathroom—will be there. I stumble to a stop when the door opens, both because it’s blinding and because I don’t think I should be in here.
It’s an art studio. It feels like an invasion of privacy to step inside, but the sculpture in the center of the room beckons me closer. I can’t bringmyself to leave, and just like that, the light is almost bearable, the pounding in my head a distant memory.
That’s one thing I’ve always admired about Maddox—and what critics have been discussing since he entered the art scene. He’s never stuck to one medium. Going from clay, to oil paint, to marble, to photography, to watercolor. He’s a natural at anything related to the arts. Killing included, I guess.
I narrow my eyes on a marble sculpture sitting on a table in the middle of the room. It’s half cloaked in a white sheet that my fingers are itching to pull away.
From what I can see, a two-headed serpent climbs up the staff strapped to a woman’s back. Poison ivy coils around her hand, pointing up to the heavens. A cross between armor and some kind of silken fabric covers her body, only leaving the hole in her chest exposed.
When I step forward to take a closer look at the half-painted canvas on the easel behind the sculpture, another wave of nausea rolls through me. My arms shoot out toward the floating shelves for balance as my joints nearly buckle instead of supporting my weight.
