“Anna was my friend,” I said. “Your colleague. And she died making sure that I lived.”
Noelle must have picked up on the horror in my tone. She placed a hand on each of her hips and offered a small gesture toward sympathy. “Her loss was unfortunate. As were the losses of all the faithful people who worked for the household. However, they’re not important now. They’re dead. You’re alive, and your deviation from protocol could have gotten you killed.”
I didn’t bother reminding her again that I hadn’t disobeyed anybody. In fact, I’d been nothing but obedient by leaving the household at Anna’s command.
Why the hell would I have stayed there when leaving and finding the killers was an option? I’d been trained for years to hunt down targets, and now, when I’d put those skills to use against the people who’d not only threatened but destroyed the household, Noelle was chastising me for it?
I stayed silent and gritted my teeth. How had I been so wrong? I’d looked at her as a guide—as someone I could trust and whom I’d protect with my life. She was talking like… like I was a misbehaved pet, or a possession that’d purposefully been misplaced. Not a person at all.
The respect I’d felt for her didn’t seem to go both ways.
But she still had to know more than I did. It wasn’t as if I could walk away.
“Why did it happen?” I asked. “Why did someone kill the whole household and leave them like that?” There was no point in mentioning right now that I knew who’d done it. I still didn’t understand why the men I’d spent the last few days with would have. Had they been long-time enemies of the household? Had it been some kind of game to them? They’d acted so casual about the shootout in the drug den, even taking pictures…
The pieces didn’t fit together.
Noelle released a hoarse laugh. “Why? Decima, dear, I’m not the one who killed them. You would need to ask the assholes who did that question.”
I frowned. What had she been doing for the past week, then? “Haven’t you been investigating to figure out who did this and why?”
“No, I’ve been busy trying to track you down and confirm you weren’t actually caught in the crossfire. Nothing else was as important as that.”
Nothing else was as important as finding me, but she’d spent the entire time since I’d turned up berating me? My head was starting to ache.
Abruptly, I found myself thinking of the men—the fake cops. The way I’d seen them work together, a perfectly cohesive unit when they needed to be even if they bantered and snarked at other times.
I had no doubt at all that if one of them were killed, the other three would go to the ends of the earth to get justice for that death. I’d always given the same loyalty to the household, and I assumed that everyone who was part of it held the same sentiment.
Noelle had brushed it off like an afterthought.
How could the people who were obviously the bad guys make me feel safer than the woman who’d made me who I was? And yet, ridiculously, I couldn’t help craving the men’s presence around me: Julius’s impervious authority, Talon’s cool strength, Blaze’s hyperactive cheer, and, hell, even Garrison’s defensive snark.
“You really have no idea why an attack like that would have happened?” I tried again. “Did we have so many enemies that there’s no way of knowing who would have had the resources?”
Noelle sighed. “We can get into all of that later, Decima. It’s time to leave. We can regroup, and then I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
Everything she decided I needed to know, not everything I wanted to. The same frustration I’d felt when the guys had stonewalled me surged up again, twice as strong when it was coming from her. “I want to know now.”
She scoffed. “You would be smart to listen to me if you want to live. The dangers of the real world are worse than I could ever explain to you, and some of those dangers are after both of us for being part of the household. The longer you sit here and argue with me, the more likely it is that they’ll find us and kill us both.”
Would they? Julius and the others had obviously known something about how I was connected to the household all along. But they’d given me a bed and good meals and space to move around in. If they’d wanted me dead, I had to admit they could have killed me a dozen times, at least in the first day when I’d been disoriented and hadn’t realized how formidable a force they were.
How well did Noelle really know what she was talking about?
I squared my shoulders. “If you would just tell me—”
“You know what? I’m done with you disobeying me.” Noelle snapped her fingers. “Garlic milkshake,” she said, emphasizing both words in that odd combination.
Something inside me clicked, my mind going just a little dull and hazy, detached from the rest of my body.
“Garlic milkshake,” Noelle repeated. Despite my resistance, my posture snapped to attention, my limbs tensing with readiness. She smiled. “Good. No more questions.”
I tried to open my mouth anyway, but my jaw refused to budge. What the fuck? I stared at Noelle, backing up one step and then another.
Her eyes narrowed. “Stay where you are.”
My feet seemed to meld with the ground. My heart thumped faster. How was she doing that?