Page 69 of Fallen Creed

But it was more than his boldness. It felt like those blue eyes could see deeper than she wanted him to see.

“Why did you run?” he asked. “If you weren’t going off to hurt yourself?”

“You don’t know anything about me.” It was a ridiculous thing to say. And useless. Even she could hear herself unraveling around the edges. But she was good at distracting and deflecting, so why not continue to counterpunch?

“Everybody seems to think attempted suicide is a terminal illness,” she told him. “Or it’s like if you didn’t get it right the first time, of course you’ll try again.”

He sipped his coffee as if he didn’t care. “My dad shot himself in the head. Got it right on the first try.”

She stopped her jaw before it dropped completely open. Most people wouldn’t have noticed. This guy did, though. She stared at him, waiting for details until she realized he wasn’t offering anything more. So that’s how he wanted to play this. He’d make her ask. Want her to give up details in exchange.

She couldn’t figure him out, and yes, it bothered the hell out of her. It didn’t help that he was handsome for an old guy. He had to be thirty.

“I was the one who found him,” he said, with no prompting.

For once, his eyes weren’t on her. He was looking out the window. Maybe he was thinking about his father. Maybe he was bullshitting her until Ariel got back.

“He was watching football,” he continued. “At first, I thought he was asleep on the sofa. He looked peaceful. Surprisingly, it wasn’t even all that messy.”

His eyes swung back to hers as if he needed their effect to deliver his next blow. “Vertical wrist cuts,” he said with a glance at her hands. “Now that had to be messy.”

She wasn’t used to anyone talking about suicide like this. Usually people tiptoed around it. Thought they were being polite. Libby figured they really didn’t want to know the details. Even Nora hadn’t asked any questions.

Libby held his eyes. What game was he playing? She wondered if he was just pissed about getting stabbed and trussed up by a couple of girls. Guys like him probably weren’t used to being overpowered so easily.

He was over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, lean and muscular. Ariel made a big deal about his abs when she was taking off his shirt. She wanted to take the T-shirt off, too, just to look at his body, but the T-shirt was too bloody. Ariel was already disgusted that she had walked in the trail of blood he’d left on the trailer floor. It had soiled her only pair of socks. She stole a pair from his backpack, then bragged about how warm they were.

Now, pretending to get bored with him, Libby shrugged, following his casual lead. “Sure. It’s a helluva mess. That’s the point. To bleed out quickly. And if you do it right, you’re not supposed to be around to care much about whether or not you stained the bathroom tiles.”

He nodded. Listened. Nothing to add. Those blue eyes searching to understand.

The dog snuggled up against him, readjusting and shooting a look at Libby before she ducked her head and laid it on his lap. His right hand petted her, then rested on her back. In that brief second or two, Libby caught him grimace.

The dog’s bump, even as gentle as it was, caused him pain. He was hurting. Must be bad if a nudge had broken his carefully curated blank expression. How much leverage had he given up in that brief glimpse?

Yes, that was exactly how little she trusted anyone these days. Before she realized it, her mind was already spinning and concocting ways to use his pain against him. Another lesson she’d learned from Ruben. If you know a person’s weakness, you can turn it into your greatest weapon against them.

“So what made you run?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“Excuse me?”

“You said you didn’t go off to hurt yourself. But you did run away.”

“Maybe I just wanted to be left alone for a while.”

“And you couldn’t just tell Nora that?”

“I don’t owe her anything. She doesn’t care about me. To her, I’m just some mixed up girl that triggered her martyr syndrome.”

“Really?”

“Look, you think you know me, because what? Your daddy killed himself and oh, by the way, I tried to do the same thing, so you think we have something in common. You don’t have a clue who I am or what I’m capable of doing.”

He wasn’t impressed, and even Libby had to admit her rant sounded like a stupid teenager. Where the hell was Ariel? Maybe she didn’t want to wait for the snow to stop. Maybe she was halfway to Lincoln by now. Or stuck in a snowbank.

“Nora cares about you,” he said, his tone still composed and all matter-of-fact. “You should have seen how panicked she was when she thought those body parts were yours.”

“How did she know it wasn’t me?”