Would that be so bad?
His shoulders hang in confusion and pain hits my gut, but I don’t relent. If he was waiting on me to say more, he wouldn’t get it.
I can feel his tension radiating off with every passing minute. Eventually, it gets the better of him, and I fight not to wince at the agony in his tone.
“You wouldn’t have called me if you were fine.” He reaches for me, but I step away, and his jaw tics. “Tell me what happened, explainplease.”
I blink. There he was using that word again. I push down his concern, swallowing.
“Technically you called me,” I point out. “And I wasn’t in a panic,” I state, keeping my tone flat, distant.
Cole doesn’t appreciate it. His patience dwindles. His eyebrows drop lower. He was examining me. Trying to understand why I was acting this way. I was doing the same.
“I already told you what happened.”
“And I told you that wasn’t enough.” His eyes burned into me. “I need to know every last detail so I can help you. Let me help you.” That last part coming off almost as a plea.
My chest burned.
“You were at practice; you shouldn’t have left.”Why would you leave for me, Iceman?
“Fuck practice,” he snarls. “I told you from the very beginning, you are my responsibility.Mypriority.”
“I didn’t ask for that. I didn’t ask for any of this!” I raise my voice.
The room falls silent. We both knew I wasn’t talking about only him. I was referring to everything. My life before I came here, my life now, all of it.
Cole’s postures straighten as his eyes flatten. That polished mask he showed the world with slipping back into place. Hardening over.
“Yeah, well you didn’t seem to mind having my dick inside you these last few weeks now, did you?” he spits out with malice.
A pressure builds starting at my temples and sinking down to my stomach. I didn’t know if I wanted to vomit or scream.
Regret flashed in his eyes, but he blinks it away, and then it’s gone. This is the Cole I had known from the beginning. The one I shouldn’t have forgotten existed. I let my guard down, I knew better.
In a haste, I bend down in search of his trinket. Blindly, I reach under his bed and pick it up. My intention to shove the item at his cold, calloused heart.
My face pinches when I pull out something else instead. The air in the room shifts and my nerves shoot back to life.
I snap my head up and his face pales. At the same time the muscles in his neck stretch in strain. The frostiness of his gaze fighting to stay in place.
A buzzing noise sounds in my ears, but I ignore it.
“What is this?”
I can hear the hesitancy in my own voice. His expression shifts, replaced with something I had never seen before on him.
…Fear.
Cole’s cloudy eyes lock onto my open hand and the matte black lighter sitting inside it. I flip it over and sharply draw in air to my emptied lungs.
This lighter almost identical to the one we found in Silas’s office.Almost.His had a K for Kellet. This one had a big fat C sitting dead center.
I used to have one like it, remember, Cole. ‘Course mine had a ‘C’ instead of ‘K’.Finn’s words rattled in my head.
My panic inflates.
“What is this?” I repeat with more urgency.