“They escaped?” Sophie jumped up from the couch, her legs eating up the distance to Jack, who met her eyes and tipped his head in a subtle imitation of a nod.
I tried to catch a glimpse of Silas, who had his head in his hands and was still being guarded by Quillan. He wasn’t fixated on Jack like everyone else. He didn’t seem to care. Jack was giving no outward hints as to what was being said on the other end of the line, so I returned to examining Silas. A scream of frustration rose up in my throat, but it never made it past my lips, because a fearful realisation quickly grabbed it back.
They’re coming for us.
I casually rose to my feet, making my way toward Sophia. “Where’s the bathroom?” I asked her.
“You can go back to our house and use that one.” She spoke distractedly, her eyes intent on Jack and Sophie. “You remember the way?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Thanks.”
I moved toward the doorway, avoiding eye-contact with the others until I was standing beside Silas’s chair, where I paused, chancing a quick glance behind me. Everyone was still focussed on Jack, waiting to hear what else he would say. I touched Silas’s shoulder and then walked out. At first I wasn’t even sure that he was following, but when I stepped onto the bridge and turned around, he was right behind me. I sucked in a breath, raising my eyes to his face, but there wasn’t any time to linger, so I only diverted my attention over his shoulder to make sure that nobody had followed us out before I spun around and hurried across the bridge. He didn’t say a word until we had passed through the boathouse and were moving toward his car, which I discovered by the side of the road.
“So I’m your getaway driver again.” He spoke gently, the usual strength behind his voice lacking so that I wasn’t even sure whether he had been simply stating a fact or asking a question.
I reached for the passenger door but he shot out a hand and snapped the door closed, his turbulent presence seeming to become distended, swelling around me and pressing in on me. I shrank back against the car. I had been avoiding examining him too closely ever since I had healed him in the hospital, but there didn’t seem to be any use in preventing it anymore. He had already proven through his actions to be altered beyond what we could have prepared for. Almost unwillingly, I dragged my eyes up his chest, noting that his breaths were too shallow, a hint of panic edging each draw of oxygen.
My fingers twitched as I looked higher, drinking in his familiar face and mentally tracing each new scar that dug its way across his skin. All of them were a depthless white texture, marked by my valcrick power with a faint shine that melded them to his normal, bronze skin texture. His eyes were still spitting fire at me, as they used to, but where previously the fire had been a smoulder, it was now something more. There was more darkness, more depth, and the heat was impossibly hotter. I could feel the warmth scattering over my cheeks and down the back of my neck, raising the fine hairs there to stand on end.
“Find what you were looking for?” he whispered, ducking his head to increase the effect of his eyes tenfold, placing his face right before mine. “Or were you looking for these?”
He pulled his car keys from the pocket of a pair of jeans that I assumed to be Jack’s, dangling them between us. I tried to reach for them, my attempt to dredge up a reply falling flat as the words caught in my throat. He pulled them back as soon as my fingers grazed metal, shoving them back into his pocket. He took a step forward until I was forced to retreat backwards, my borrowed flats slipping against the edge of the curb. Silas watched without helping—though I didn’t really need it. I couldn’t help but suspect that my short scramble had pleased him in some way. He had said the night he kissed me that he wanted to hurt me, but that he couldn’t. I wondered if he had changed his mind.
Maybe he hated me now.
Or maybe it had all been an act…
“So?” he prompted. “Where are we going?”
I swallowed, my courage disappearing, my attention diverting back to his chest. I shouldn’t be thinking about my fear of Silas—especially with all of the more pressing threats occupying my mind… but no, that wasn’t right. I wasn’t afraid of him. I was afraid of us. I was bonded to all of them, yes. There were expectations that I might get involved with all of them, yes.
But…
I knew that Silas didn’t like it. He didn’t like our forced connection and he didn’t like my connection to the others. I wasn’t sure which he hated more, but I was beginning to think that it was the latter. He didn’t want them touching me. He wanted to own me, the same way he felt that I unfairly owned him.
It was the wrong time to be agonizing over it. I needed to set it aside.