“Nope.”
A hand caught my wrist, fingers winding tight and yanking me back. I fell into a chest, broad and sturdy as any one of the huge trees around us, and looked up into eyes like the sun covered by black clouds. The sun was admonishing me, beating me down with heat that singed.
“That’s Devil's weed and very poisonous.”
My head spun back to the flowers, enthralled all the more. “What would happen if I touched it?”
“Nothing good for either of us.” His grip around my wrist lessened, and I was able to pull back towards the draw of the flowers. I couldn’t touch them; I knew Reyes wouldn’t let me anywhere close. Though, I could still look and admire such a magnificently disguised murderess.
“They’re nicknamed the Moonflower because they open up at night under moonlight.”
“It’s so beautiful…”
“And deadly.”
Slowly, I twisted my neck back to him. “My favorite.”
Something peculiar led a straight line through his eyes that were faintly visible through his sunglasses. His face remained stiff, but his eyes dropped one surveying pass over my face, and whatever he saw in that one passing glance made his jaw tighten.
“Let’s stay away from all snakes and poisonous flowers today. Think you can manage that, Avery?”
My shoulders slumped and my stomach rolled.
“You did it again.”
He knew just what he did too. Instead of apologizing, he asked, “Why do you hate your last name so much?”
“I hate my entire name. Not just my last.”
We started back down the trail, falling in step with each other as Agent Reyes corrected his long strides slower and shorter to keep in line with me. “What’s wrong with it? It’s a good name.”
I side-eyed him. “Was that a compliment?”
“To your parents.”
“Fuck my parents,” I muttered, lowering my focus to the dirt and twigs crunching beneath my feet.
“Ah, so you don’t just have daddy issues.”
My eyes rolled to touch the back of my head. “Fuck off, Reyes.”
Out of the corner of my eye, he stuffed his hands into his front pockets as we walked beneath an awning twisted together by vines and curvy branches.
“What’d your mom do to make you hate her?” he asked after a beat.
“I don’t hate her.” I haven’t been able to have a coherent conversation with her in five years enough to hate her.
“But you don’t like her.”
It wasn’t a question. He was making a statement. A way too fucking personal statement.
I scoffed. “We’re not doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Getting to know each other. Pretending like we care to know each other.”
Agent Reyes angled his face towards his shoes, silent. As we strolled, I kept an eye out for any breaks in the trail I could hide down. I’d need something thick and inconspicuous, a hill if I could find one. I could distract Reyes for just a few moments and slide down the hill to the cover of some trees or bushes and stay there until he stopped searching for me.