“In layman's terms, it means you all suck at handling things. We're nowhere closer to catching this guy than we were during The Ladder Games.”
“Some of that blame can be placed on The Guardian.” His words come out as a peeved mumble, but I heard him.
“Did you say guardian? What’s that mean?”
“Nothing. Forget it. Go the fuck to sleep.”
My body shoots up, water spilling all over me. “Oops. I forgot I was holding that.” I laugh, but the angered look on Neo’s face says he doesn't find it funny at all. One glance down at my shirt reveals the bud of my nipples showing through my, now soaked, white tank top.
My mouth draws back. “Umm. Don’t look.”
“As if there’s anything to look at.” His words don’t match his actions when I catch him staring at my chest.
“Then what are you looking at?”
He grumbles. “Nothing special, I can promise you that.”
I scowl at him, eyebrows knitted. “Why are you so mean?”
Gripping the hem of my shirt, I lift up and pull my tank top over my head.
“What the fuck, Scar!” He grabs a pillow, shoving it to my chest. “Have you lost your damn mind?”
“Actually, yes. I do feel like my mind is lost. But what’s the big deal? It’s nothing special, so you shouldn’t care.”
Neo jumps up and goes over to my dresser, pulling open a couple drawers before he finds a shirt. He tosses it to me, but it lands on the end of the bed, so I drop the pillow and crawl to it. “Thanks, Neo. Aren’t you just a ball of sweetness.”
As I’m pulling it on, I catch him watching me, and when my eyes drag down to his crotch, I see his erection growing. A smile tugs at my lips. He can pretend my tits are nothing special, but his dick thinks otherwise.
Once I’m in a dry shirt, I lie back down. Minutes pass of Neo standing in my room, watching me, and waiting for me to fall asleep, so he can leave.
But I can’t sleep. I suddenly feel a burst of energy and I, too, am convinced I didn’t take a sleeping pill. “What do you think the pill was?” I ask Neo, who’s deep in thought.
“Hmm?” He snaps out of it. “I dunno. Mood stabilizer, maybe?”
I move to my side again, so I can see him while I speak. “He probably tried to kill me and failed.”
“If he wanted to kill you, there are easier ways to get rid of you.”
“Sounds like you’ve thought about it.”
He raises a shoulder. “A time or two.”
“Neo?” I say his name as a question. “Why do you blame me for everything bad that happened in your life?”
He breaks eye contact with me, turns around, and begins messing with something on my dresser. “Because you are to blame.”
I sit up, bringing the blanket with me. I don’t want to open old wounds, but this is the first real conversation I’ve had with Neo in years, and it might be the last for years to come. “I’m not, though.”
He picks something up off my dresser, a note, maybe, and he unfolds it. Spinning around, his demeanor has completely shifted. Shoulders drawn back, nostrils flared. “Where the hell did you get this?”
“I dunno. What is it?”
“It’s mine! That’s what the fuck it is! And I wanna know where you got it.” He charges at me, fingers spiderwebbed as he reaches for my throat. I pull back, my head pressed firmly against the headboard.
“I don’t know how it got here. I swear, Neo.” Fingertips dip into the flesh of my neck and I stare into eyes laced with hate and intent. My throat tightens, the pulse in my neck pounding against his palm.
“Liar!” he shouts. “You’ve known all this time I had the proof and you thought you could steal it from me, didn’t you?”