Thiswasnot how I expected today to go.
By this time today, I had hoped to be rocking that orange jumpsuit, settling in for the night on some cot that felt like it’d been stuffed with rocks, and singling out the inmates I’d pick my death-wish fights with.
And yet, instead of staring up at the ceiling of a jail cell, I was looking straight up at a man with eyes the color of honey and a temper that rivaled hurricanes.
Agent Reyes did not look or act like any Special Agent I’d ever met. Agents were known for keeping their emotions in check and buried, but his? They were thriving on his surface like a neon second skin.
That second skin of his inflamed as I called him an asshole, emotions zigzagging across his sharp features like fireworks set loose. “You get your phone back when we get on the road. Now, move.”
“No.”
Another firework shot across his stare, and he clenched his jaw. “I’m sure you think that this rebellious ‘I’m a badass’ act is cute, but it's been played out. Find some new material next time you want your father’s attention.”
The vision of Agent Reyes silhouetted in sunlight glitched out as I rolled my eyes.
He didn’t know me. He could pretend like he did because he knew my dad, but my dad knew fuck all about me either. If he did, he wouldn’t have pulled his puppets where he liked and gotten my charges dropped. He would have known this was what I wanted.
He would have known I just couldn’t do it anymore.
Now I had to start all fucking over again. Great.
Dying should not be this much effort.
“All right.” I held up my hands, retreating backwards. “I’m walking away. Have fun with the rest of your day, Agent.”
I turned my flip-flop on the cement, lifting my foot to go when a hand, firm and uncomfortably warm, wrapped around my upper arm and tugged. My body jerked back around, trapped by Agent Reyes’ fingers that imprinted my skin with whispers of bruises.
My head snapped back to glare in what should have been shock, but what felt a hell of a lot more like resentment that so many goddamn men didn’t ask before they touched.
Up close, the honey of his eyes had turned rotten, the flecks of gold floating through them a minute ago soiled by a calamitous rage this man with a license for a gun had zero control over.
Pulling back my lips over my teeth, I grit out, “Hands. Off.”
Agent Reyes held my stare in a challenge I had absolutely no desire to play out.
I just wanted to go. I wanted to leave and run into the busy traffic whizzing by just down the road. God, what an easy way to go out. Quick and pain guaranteed—an ideal death.
Too bad it wouldn’t count if I did it myself.
Slowly, the long fingers around my arm unraveled one by one, and Agent Reyes stepped back into his own space. He took his warmth with him too, and somehow, in the sweltering California sun, a chill managed to race along my arm.
By his side, his hand fisted open and closed and confirmed that this fucker knew he had anger issues.
My eyes fell to his lips as he rolled them together, coming out a shade of pink lighter as he released them. “A day's time, and this will all be over,” he tried to appease. “A quick drive to the airport, an overnight flight, and then you’re out of my hands.”
A sharp laugh sent my head backwards. “Are you sure my dad sent you? Because I know for a fact he wouldn’t expect me to get on a plane.”
Thick, black eyebrows sliced together. “Do you expect us to teleport there? I know your life has likely been a cake-walk, but even that’s leaning a bit too far into the fucking insane.”
His insult washed across my chest, sinking in and curdling my blood. I could feel it popping beneath my skin, each snap bursting open my own temper that I wittingly let run off its leash on a daily. I stepped into him, the heat of my wrath licking up the back of my shirt, sweat dripping down as I brought myself right under his boiling stare.
“I don’t fly.”
“Not without a plane, you don’t.”
This motherfucker didn’t get it.
“I don’t do planes. Get that through your fucking skull,” I said, smacking the top of my head between my words like I wanted to smack his.