Page 57 of Hunted

“Absolutely! No take backs!” I shouted, all but snatching the weapon from his grip—stopping myself at the last second because this was his baby, and I respected people’s babies.

“Come on,” he said, shoving a full magazine into the pretty, pretty gun, then grabbed my hand again with his free one. “Beck’s room has the best view.”

Shit. Beck.

Not only was I getting the full tour of Instructor Pearce’s bedroom, he was now dragging me headlong into Instructor Beckett’s—arguably the most terrifying of the three.

“Are you sure he won’t be home anytime soon?” I asked, wariness stealing the strength of my voice in an embarrassingly obvious way.

Pearce squeezed my hand as we crossed the kitchen to the door on the far side. “Positive. He’s got a meeting first, then training this afternoon.”

“Who’s he training?”

He smiled at me mischievously—and I was beginning to learn that that was his standard response to most things. “Himself, Miss Sinclair. However did you think zee beast retains zee musculature?”

I knew he meant it as a joke, a way to make me laugh or break the ice—but his words fell flat. He’d only succeeded in reminding me of Fleur, and the fact that I couldn’t immediately go tell her where I’d been and with whom.

Suddenly, the allure of the gun faded, and I was left with an even bigger hole in my chest where my heart used to be.

“Hey,” Pearce said softly, leaning the gun against the wall. “What happened?” He tilted my chin up, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “Where’d you just go?”

With nowhere to escape to, the truth slipped out. The whole, raw truth, exactly as I was feeling it.

“You—the accent. It sounded French.” My face fell, my bottom lip trembling. “It reminded me of Fleur Deveaux—the girl⁠—”

“The girl you were close to, who died in your bed,” he finished gently.

I nodded, not knowing if it made me a coward for being relieved I hadn’t had to say the words. I couldn’t recall if I’d actually uttered them aloud yet—or if I was living in some kind of denial about the whole tragic situation.

“She was my best friend, after promising myself I wouldn’t allow anyone to get close in here.”

His lips curved knowingly. “I have a pair like that myself. Two sons of bitches who wormed their way in despite all the reasons I gave them not to.”

I blinked, taken aback. “Exactly.”

“Come on. I promise this is precisely what you need to feel better.” He scooped up the CheyTac Intervention and nudged Beckett’s door open with his shoulder.

It was exactly as I expected—but also not. The bed was perfectly made, not a wrinkle in sight—the cover, a beautiful sage green. A bedside table sat beside it, free of clutter. All of his cupboards and drawers were neatly closed and he had zero personal items in sight—not even a solitary photograph. A bookshelf made of solid oak stood in the corner beside the window, with titles arranged by series and no apparent order beyond that.

I crept forward, squinting to read the names on the spines. Upon closer examination, they were the most out-of-place and personal things in the room: Hate by Tate James, Flock by Kate Stewart, The Venom in her Veins by J.E. Caroline, even Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid.

Wide-eyed, I turned to Pearce for verification. “These are all⁠—”

“Romance books of some variety, yes,” he agreed. “But don’t tell a soul you saw them in here or we’ll be flatmates six feet under quicker than you can say cottage.”

My face scrunched. “Cottage?”

He groaned. “Don’t ask.”

I bit my lip, with the sense that I’d missed something. “So. Gun?” I asked, hoping it would be a welcome change in topic. And judging by the pair of dimples appearing in each of his cheeks, that was a solid guess.

Pearce crossed to the double-hung window, threw it up as high as it would go, and propped the rifle’s bipod stands on the sill. He rested the butt of the gun in the pocket of his right shoulder, fiddled with some of the mechanisms on top, then grinned up at me.

Outside Beck’s window, Black Mountain was the central view. He had the unique ability to sit here and witness a person’s entire trek up to Widow’s Drop, not to mention prime viewing of the field below, where we were routinely subjected to laps and suicide runs.

Sadistic prick probably sat here contemplating all the ways to make us suffer in the name of furthering our athletic abilities.

“Pick a mark,” Pearce said, nodding at the mountain.