His slanted eyes were on Derek’s, and his grip around me was tight. Curiosity tugged my eyebrows upwards, and I wondered if his hand found its way to my arm to keep me from running or because of how Derek’s shifty eyes kept sliding down my legs.
James lugged me alongside him as we walked the length of the painfully bright hallway down to the row of elevators. We rode it up to level four, silent the whole way up until the chrome doors pulled open, and we three trudged down the outdoor breezeway to rooms 401 and 402.
Our rooms for tonight sat on the corner of an outside hallway on the top floor of the lodge. The Arkansas air was cooler than I wanted it to be as we stepped past butts of charred cigs before making it in front of the door with 401 sprawled across it in chipped gold.
This place was nothing more than a garbage can with a pretty face.
James slipped the key card into the lock, and Derek went into his room next door, and we went into ours. James didn’t let me go until the door clasped closed behind us.
The room was quiet. Two beds with pale gold sheets pulled overtop sat next to each other, nightstands on either side. There was a tiny T.V. sitting on a drawer of dressers and the kind of ornate furniture placed throughout that wasn’t made for real use. It reminded me of my mother’s living room back in California.
The only thing this overdone motel room didn’t have, as James quickly noticed, was a minibar.
“Fucking, come on,” he groaned, digging his thumbs into his tired eyes.
His hands slapped against his jeans as he dropped them down, head hanging back towards the ceiling in frustration. I kicked off my flip-flops, burrowing my toes into the stiff carpet as I watched him from afar.
“I think I saw a liquor store down the road.” His voice was graveled and spent, and he heaved out a deep sigh. Bringing his head back level, he found me on the other side of the room through the cracks of his heavy eyes. “I’ll be right back.”
And then he banged his fist against the wall of the room, barking for Derek who appeared less than a minute later.
James told him he needed to make a run and ordered Derek to watch me until he got back. The blond agent nodded fervently, casting me a brief glance, and I was reminded of the ghostly chill down my neck.
I shifted on bare feet, rolling my fingers against my palms. “Can I go with you?”
James caught my eye, frowning in every way a person could. “I’m too fucking tired to try and catch you if you make one of your great escapes, Scarlett.”
“I won’t.” I shook my head, stepping closer to him. “Just let me come along.”
His eyelids slid lower as he struggled to stay awake and stay standing, his lips parting as he stared at me. I waited for him to speak, to tell me to get my shoes on and come along and get the fuck out of Derek’s greedy eyeline.
But James closed his mouth and demolished my hope.
“No. I’ll be quick. Fifteen minutes tops.”
“We’ll be fine.” Derek waved a hand at James, ushering him out the door. “Just don’t fall asleep at the wheel, ‘kay?”
James nodded his words of warning off and stepped across the threshold of the door into the breezeway. My heart thumped a vicious beat as he separated us for the first time in days.
The ever-lurking fire felt the difference too, dancing to life beneath my skin after sleeping for nearly a full day.
Most of the time, the fire was a punishment for breathing longer than I should have. Occasionally though, the fire was a warning, an alarm set off in my veins that something wasn’t right.
That something around me was dangerous.
Just before James left, he shot a droopy-eyed threat to Derek.
“Don’t fuck with her while I’m gone.” Then he turned his threat to me. “Don’t kill him while I’m gone.”
Derek laughed him off, trying to close the door before James was even fully out of sight. As the last fracture of James slid out of my vision, the fire burst like flames exploding through windows of a burning building.
It pierced a silent cry in my throat as James burned himself out to just an ashen shadow.
Now it was just me, the fire, and Derek.
The fire cut my eyes up to him as he faced me, a wily grin denting his cheeks.
“Reyes sure likes to give orders, huh?”