What did I see? Not a face, but a body in a black hoodie. Definitely a man. We hadn’t been too far apart, and he’d held the gun steady, which meant he was used to handling a weapon like that. He could’ve easily shot me in the head, point-blank, and killed me, taken me off this God-forsaken planet forever, but he didn’t.
The thought made me wonder. Why not kill me? Why only wound me? It didn’t make sense.
My father didn’t return, but someone else walked into the room, holding onto a coffee. The smell of it made me scrunch my face in disgust, which then caused the man holding it to rush to the side of the bed.
And who was it? Not someone I particularly wanted to see, not after our last encounter. Not after what my father said—that he was supposed to go after Piper to see if he could get any information out of her. Not after everything he’d told me, that he cared about me, that he wanted me. And those kisses…
Now was really not the time to imagine those kisses and how nice it had been to forget everything in my life and surrender to the feeling of his lips on mine.
Zander.
“Giselle,” he said, earnest, green eyes fraught with concern, “how are you feeling?” His brown hair was greasy, like he’d skipped his shower today, and his jaw held a shade of stubble. He was unhurried in sitting on the chair beside the bed, an ugly flower print that was the only splash of color in the room. The hand not currently holding onto the coffee reached out to grip mine, and he squeezed my fingers gently.
My body was sore and exhausted, but I still managed to pull my hand away from his, resting it on my stomach. “I’ve been better,” I whispered, my voice dry. When I spoke, I could feel my cracked lips, and I wanted something to drink. Suddenly that coffee didn’t smell so bad. Water would probably be better for me, though, so I didn’t ask.
Zander stared at me like he thought I was going to die, and I managed to roll my eyes.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Like… like that.” I couldn’t exactly say that he was staring at me like he thought he was going to lose me, like he wanted to confess his undying love for me and reinforce everything he’d ever told me since moving to Cypress.I was in no mood for awkward declarations of love.
Zander’s lips pulled taut, and he murmured, “I can’t help it. I don’t like seeing you like this, Giselle. When I heard about what happened…” He let out a sigh, and I could imagine well enough what he’d done when he’d heard about me being shot: freaked the hell out. Freaked out and gotten mad at me that I’d slipped out without telling anyone, gone somewhere without him being my shadow.
I didn’t say anything, mostly because there was nothing to say at this point. It wasn’t like I could get up and run away from him again; I was kind of stuck to this bed for a while, which made me an unwilling participant in this conversation.
It wasn’t like I didn’t want to face the emotions welling inside of me anytime Zander was near. It was more like I couldn’t, because it’d be foolish to do so. He worked for my father. He was my father’s man, not mine, and since he was my father’s man, I couldn’t trust him.
And that reality hurt almost as much as the bullet.
“Did you see who did it?” Zander asked, taking a sip of his coffee. He glanced at the open door, probably waiting for my father to make his return. It should’ve been more comfortable since it was the two of us, but there was too much unsaid in the air.
“No,” I said. “It was a man, I know that, but that’s all I could see. It… it all happened so fast.” My eyelids closed, and for a moment, I was thrown back into that night, running out of the Playground, not knowing what it was I wanted. The man with the gun, following me. The heat from the bullet, the pain that had ripped through me shortly after. It all had happened so quickly, even the adrenaline in my system couldn’t stop it from bringing me down.
He looked pained, as if he was the one who’d been shot. “I’m so sorry, Giselle.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“What were you doing out, anyway? Where did you go?” With another glance toward the door, Zander had to make sure we were alone before asking in a whisper, “You didn’t go back to the Playground, did you?”
The look I gave him told him all he needed to know.
“I told you not to go there without me. You know you have a target on your back here since you’re Miguel’s daughter,” he reminded me of something I already knew. “I don’t want you going anywhere without me.”
It was amazing that I could respond so snippily and swiftly, “Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that you were calling the shots—”
“You know your father would say the same thing.”
I glared at him. Bringing up my father wasn’t something that made me happy; Zander should know that. Then again, I didn’t think he knew just how much I abhorred my father for what he made me do three years ago.
“You should go,” I said. “I don’t want to see him right now, and if he comes back and finds you in here, he’ll know I’m awake.”
Zander sighed. “You’ve got to talk to Miguel eventually, you know. He wants to know what happened, and then you’ll have to talk to the police. I don’t know that they’ll do anything, but they need to make a report on it. If anyone will find out who shot you, it’s your father.” There was a pause. “And me.”
Right, because the police in Cypress were probably in the pocket of the Black Hand and its families. My father, once he found out who shot me, would send out his own men to fetch him. Not to kill him, because my father would want to kill him himself—or maybe invite me to do it.
Would I kill the person who shot me, if given the chance?