Page 19 of Dreadful

My lips twist. “You only sleep when you get shot?”

He lets out a low, amused sound, more breath than voice, and shifts deeper into the lounger. “How’s my brother’s bed?” He tsks softly. “Must not be good if you’re out here with me.”

A familiar tension prickles across my skin—like déjà vu only heavier. I tilt my head, letting my hair slide over one shoulder. “Is this going to be a problem for you?”

He tips his head back against the headrest. Moonlight catches the dark sweep of his lashes, the unyielding line of his mouth. His eyes—a shade of blue-gray that seems to sparkle the light—hold mine with a look so steady it feels like ownership. “I know how to fight, baby.”

It should sound like a threat but instead, it lands somewhere soft and pliable, sinking into my skin.

I rake my teeth over my bottom lip and slowly shake my head a few times. “I don’t want you guys to fight. And definitely not over me.”

He lifts one shoulder in an apathetic shrug. “We're brothers.”

He shifts the gun on his lap to the armrest and reaches out, snagging my hand and threading his fingers through mine. And then he just tugs—steady, patient, like he already knows I'll follow—until I give and climb over to straddle the lounger above him.

His free hand finds the collar of my tee and draws it wide, baring my shoulder to the night air.

“I’m fine, Rafe,” I reassure him in a low voice.

He looks at it for a long beat before he looks at me.

“You in pain?” The pad of his thumb traces a slow arc just below the gauze. “It's too soon for more painkillers.”

“I’ll be alright.” Which is true—it's sitting at a low, manageable throb right now, the kind of thing you can almost forget about if you stay still. The fact that it's genuinely the smallest thing I'm carrying tonight is the part I can't quite get my head around. I've been shot before and it's never ranked this low.

A dull throb, nothing I can't breathe through—which is honestly its own kind of absurd, that getting shot has become the least urgent item on the list.

He dips his head and ghosts his mouth across the gauze, slow and deliberate, tracing the edge of the bandage until his lips find bare skin. “Why're you out here, baby?”

“Something woke me up,” I murmur, the words coming out slow and distracted, my attention still caught on the path his mouth is tracing.

He goes still so fast it's like a switch thrown. His grip on me tightens—fingers pressing in at my hip—and his other hand closes around the gun on the armrest in one fluid motion, angling toward the yard.

"What did you hear?"

I make myself look. The yard gives me nothing—just the long shadow of the fence, the pale slabs of the patio stones, the oleander bushes sitting heavy and motionless in the windless air. No shapes where there shouldn't be shapes. No sound underneath the sound.

"I'm not sure," I say. "It was already gone by the time I was fully awake. Could've been a dream bleeding through." A beat. "But I couldn't go back to sleep without checking on my sister."

Something in his grip eases—not fully, but enough. His fingers don't leave the gun. "And you didn't think to grab a weapon before you went investigating a sound." It isn't quite a question.

I bite the inside of my cheek. The honest answer is that it didn't occur to me, which is its own kind of damning. "I see your point."

My throat clicks dryly when I swallow. “Speaking of my sister, we should leave. Tonight.” My tongue darts out to wet my lip. “Right now.”

He doesn't move, but his focus sharpens like a blade being drawn. The night air suddenly feels thinner.

"And go where?"

“Somewhere the Widowmakers and Devil's Hand aren't.”

A low, soft laugh rumbles through his chest. His arm hooks around my waist, pulling me closer.

“You can leave, baby. You can disappear. Change your name and burn your phone. Drive until you run out of road. I'll still find you.” He tilts his head. “And so will my brothers.”

My breath catches. It isn’t the threat I expected—not a cage, but a shadow. He isn’t saying he’ll drag me back. He’s saying he’ll be there when I stop running.

And I… I don’t know what to do with that.