I started panting again, ignoring my back and rib pain. “If you’re trying to help, you’re doing a really shitty job at it.”
That got me a glare. “I’m not done talking,” he went on. “You need to understand what’s going to happen. They are going to look for you. Even if their operation were to shut down tomorrow, it wouldn’t matter because someone else will come looking for you and the money, and you’ll never be safe.”
I choked.
He whacked me in the back almost too softly. “I’m not done. What I was saying is that when we get through this, when we get to where we need to go—” The lean muscles in his cheeks flexed, and his voice went slightly tight, it wasn’t anger but maybe resignation? “—you can live with me until we can figure out a safe, long-term solution.”
I hadn’t heard him correctly, had I?
My cheeks started to tingle, and more tears bubbled up in my eyes as I stared at him. Mostly in disbelief. Maybe a little bit in shock.
“You can interrupt me now,” The Defender said.
“But… you don’t even like me.” There, I’d said it. It wasn’t like that was anything new.
There was literally no hesitation in his response. The son of a bitch even shrugged a little bit. “You’re all right.”
I was all right.
Me. Gracie Castro was all right.
Half the shit that came out of his mouth was rude, and he had the patience of a toddler, but I was all right? “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.” Was this the dumbest thing to argue over? Yeah, it was, but it was the truth.
Then he gave me more of that personality, that reminder of who he genuinely seemed to be. A grumpy man who saved people. “I told you already. I owe you.”
I held back tears, trying to pick my words carefully, even though most of them escaped me.
I had to think about this rationally.
He was right. I understood that, even if I didn’t want to. Even if it felt like the end of the world, which it kind of was.
The end of my world at least.
But it was what it was, and I couldn’t rewind time.
He was doing this out of pity. No shit he was. Neither one of us had known what was going to happen on the day he’d landed in my yard. I’d done what I had to do. I’d known it was going to be complicated.
The idea of relying on someone went against every instinct in my body.
But I was, and I didn’t have anyone who could actually help, and the idea of having something to fall back on, somewhere to actually go…
To not be alone, at least for a little while longer…
Especially in this shit storm of a situation.
“Maybe you could make it a month, maybe a year, but eventually, they would find you,” he said quietly, stressing his point.
It was a good point.
“I know,” I muttered, still trying to convince my body that I didn’t have another choice.
Because I didn’t.
Of all the things my grandparents had taught me, of all the things they had asked of me, there was one that rang the brightest and the truest: survive. It was all they’d ever wanted. I was the one who had wanted more than just that.
But all I’d wanted was something. A little something more than I already had. Which was a whole lot of not enough.
I needed to survive any way I could.
This would be the same as lying to protect other people. As keeping to myself. As wearing my wig and carrying pepper spray and religiously clearing my browser and cookies every single day.
Forcing myself to stand up straight, I rubbed my face with my palms and tried to calm down. Dropping them, I lifted my head and wiped under my eyes before nodding as another roll of thunder pierced the forest we were in, and I shivered. We were so vulnerable here.
I was going to be vulnerable everywhere now though, wasn’t I? That was the whole point. Everything had changed, and I either rolled with it or I let it roll over me.
If my life was a comic book, if I was Mistress Mayhem, I’d do what I had to do. She was my favorite antihero. She did what she had to do, even if she bitched and complained the whole time.
I fisted my hands. “You’re right,” I told him weakly. “Neither one of us chose this, and I don’t have any other options. And I’m sorry I don’t. Other than just being able to protect me if someone came to kidnap me and giving me some ideas for how to figure out some other way to hide, I don’t know how else you’d be able to help, but… I’ll take it until I can figure something out.” I shrugged my shoulders as much as my poor body would let me. “I don’t have anyone else I can ask to help me.” My voice wobbled. “I don’t have anyone period.”
It felt so wrong. Not in my stomach but in my head. I wasn’t supposed to get other people involved, but I was never supposed to be in this position, so where did that leave me?
Having to rely on someone with no allegiance to me other than a debt he really didn’t owe me, if he put his mind to it.
On the flipside, he had no reason to believe I would be true to him either, especially with the amount of information he’d willingly shared with me, which I was still suspicious about.
Then again, I was suspicious about everything with him. Why he had suddenly started to talk to me. Why he had gone out of his way to hold me while I’d been sick when he could have easily just let me lay there, miserable.
But my paranoia hadn’t gotten me anywhere in life. Not really. And if he could go out on a limb and tell me things about himself, then I could do the same.
For the first time in my life.
Watching him carefully, I slowly lifted my hand and held it out toward him. “Friends?” I offered slowly, expecting him to laugh or scoff or something.
Those incredible eyes moved from my hand to my face and back.
“We were temporary friends before. I want you to know that I don’t have any plans to backstab you or sell you out. Friends don’t do that kind of shit to each other, right?” I asked him, holding my palm out mostly steady. “You saved my life, and I want you to know that whatever I can ever do for you, I will. You can use me as a human shield, really, even if I’m not dead. But I hope you won’t. Because that would kill me.”
His face was remarkably calm.
Then those long, almost cool fingers and that big, smooth palm met mine. Alexander shook my hand as his eyebrows rose… and was that amusement on his face? A little bit of it? Then he let go just as fast. “That was easy,” he said in a funny voice. “Good.”
I lowered my arm, rubbing my fingers against my palm. I’d felt a light zap on my skin from the contact. “You’re ruining it by being smug.”
He lifted a shoulder, and his amusement disappeared. “You’ll stay with me. You agree?”
I nodded. I didn’t have a choice. Not a smart one at least. “I agree,” I said, ignoring the slight panic.
Alexander dipped his own chin, and those damn purple eyes burned over my face one more time, making me wonder again just how rough of shape I had to be in. His voice was low, serious. “You’ll be under my protection for the rest of your life. You understand?”
The rest of my life? “You mean until we figure things out?”