OVERCAST (B723 Book 1)

by Hazel Grace

  "Tell me," he finishes for me. "Yeah...sweetheart, you did.”

  “Stop calling me that," I snap, but it doesn't have the effect I want it to.

  I'm exhausted, my body aches, and the temperature in this room feels like it's below freezing when I know it's not. It's because I'm sick, and my body is worn down from worry, dread, and him.

  “I will, for today, if you eat.”

  “I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

  He chuckles with his deep voice rumbling his chest. “Terrorists? Damn, baby, you got me confused with what I normally go after.”

  “Don’t call me—”

  “You said ‘sweetheart’”, he counters. “But if you open your little mouth to let me feed you, I’ll lay off the nicknames for today.”

  “And tomorrow?”

  He shrugs. “Depends.” My teeth clench together as I avert my eyes. “On what you do for me in return.”

  I don’t owe you anything.

  Hesitantly, I open my mouth, letting him think he’s won.

  I’ll let him believe what I want him too. That I’m going to obey, stay here because he has things he needs to still do.

  That's fine.

  When I get my strength back up, I'm gone.

  I’ll play by his game, still disguise myself as the pawn. Better to play the submissive right now and surprise him when one morning he finds me gone.

  And I’ll be the last person to say “checkmate”.

  Warm soup finds my tongue, and I swallow the chicken noodle as he continues, focused on making sure he doesn't spill any.

  We don't speak, ideas flooding through my brain, and God only knows what he's contemplating. More than likely his sister and her trip to Italy. Hoping that she'll be safe and sound for a little while when he does what he does.

  “Few more bites,” Emric urges.

  Again, I obey to keep him from speaking, and after a couple of spoonfuls, he follows his end of the bargain, placing the bowl on the table. "I need to just take a quick look at your bandage."

  I’m aware that he does, I just don’t want him to remove this blanket.

  “I’ll be quick.” He doesn’t wait for permission, pushing it back to where a sudden chill racks my body.

  Emric takes a seat on the bed next to me, tucking the blanket into my back and attentively making sure it’s still wrapped around my legs.

  Lifting my shirt, his eyes flick to my wound. “I need to change the dressing later, okay?”

  Whatever.

  He doesn't wait for me to speak, already privy that I'm limited to what I want to say. Also, fully mindful that nothing I want he can give me right now.

  Standing from the bed, he tucks me back in, and I feel his eyes peering down at me. I don't know what he expects from me, a "thank you" or some sort of conversation?

  "If you need something," he professes. "Let me know I'll be downstairs. Did you want to watch TV?"

  I shake my head.

  "Alright, I'll be back later." That has my eyes clip back to his face, and when they do, he smirks at me.

  Again, whatever.

  “I know,” he replies to the silence on a sigh. “I’m excited about it too.”

  It's been three days of the same routine.

  Stormi ignoring me.

  My trying to get her to eat.

  Her giving me the cold-shoulder some more.

  And my attempts to do the best I can to make her as comfortable as possible.

  Reagan left with Wade and Huck yesterday, stopping in Connecticut at her old house before taking off to Italy. She promised to check in twice a day. It still wasn't good enough, so I sent two of my guys to look over them and make sure they stayed protected and safe.

  Sister dearest doesn't know that, though.

  Scrambling through my nearly empty fridge, I need to hit town for groceries, but I'm not leaving Stormi here alone.

  That and I don't trust her like she said.

  The last thing I want to do is go on a woman hunt for her in the woods while she's still recovering.

  So, pizza it is.

  Yanking my cell out of my pocket, I order up two large pizzas, one with pepperoni and the other with every meat known to man for myself.

  I'd go up and ask her what she likes, but the room goes down a few degrees each time I enter, so I refrain from going in there.

  A half-hour later, the pizza arrives, and I'm trucking up the stairs to see which kind she prefers.

  Only, funny fucking thing is, she's not in her room.

  Sprinting back to the stairs, the bathroom door is still wide open, but that window she's always staring out—wide open.

  Flying down the steps, I'm on my porch within seconds and studying the terrain for her ass.

  If she was smart, she wouldn’t be running around with stitches in her thigh.

  But who the hell am I?

  Lucien is supposed to be swinging by after his hospital rounds tonight, and I'm not about to get bitched at for her acting like a moron.

  I already feel like one.

  Since we've done something like this similarly before, minus the stab wound, I run towards Reagan's house. It's the evening, someone could drive down the desolate road, and lately my luck hasn't been up to par.

  She'd be hard to turn down for a ride, a pretty little thing on the side of the road looking for help. And if it's a dude on top of it, well, it only leaves me one option.

  It'll be a little bloody, and I don't want to hurt anyone else that doesn't deserve it, or that's in the wrong place at the wrong time, however...she's not going anywhere.

  Dressed still all in black, I cuss myself out for picking the perfect color for us to play hide and seek in. I could've looked at the security cameras outside the property, but there's seriously no time.

  I'm taller than her, I know for a fact I can run faster, it's just finding her that might not work out in my favor.

  Clearing some of the woods that opens up to my sister's property and the small lake, I see movement. It's going down the gravel driveway of Reagan's, and I focus in on her, extending my stride to catch up.

  If I call out, she'll trip and probably hurt herself.

  She's already limping, fucking up her leg more than it already is. My blood is boiling hot and thick through my veins. The pads of my fingers and palm want to wrap around her throat and throttle her.

  Fuck, if she was five minutes faster, the pizza guy could've given her a ride.

  I get why I’m in the middle of a foot race. I understand that she wants to go home or stay with a friend.

  However, I can't take a chance of the police getting involved because they won't do shit. They'll cause more problems, try to throw my ass in jail or some other shit. B723 will have to pull some strings to get me out, and it'll just be an ordeal that I don't want anyone else to have to go through over something that was my personal problem.

  Stormi suddenly trips over her own feet but catches herself, and I pace myself to wait for the perfect opportunity to kinda, sorta, almost jump her ass.

  There is a small patch of grass that she's going to pass, and I'd rather that than her skinning her knees on the rocks.

  At the precise moment she gets to it, I wrap my arm around her waist and take her down to the ground with me, letting my side hit the ground first to break our fall.

  She lets out a scream, but she already knows who it is.

  It wasn't a huge surprise because she took a risk and fucking lost, having to have some inkling that I would hunt her down.

  Landing on my back, she scrambles off my chest and straddles me, heaving loud and unsteady breathes as I peer up at her.

  The moonlight hits perfectly, giving her an angelic look around her blonde hair. It's bright, letting me see some of her features, but right now...she's fucking perfect.

  She’s untouchable, in every scenario where her and I exist, and that’s probably why I look at her longer than necessary. Why I notice detailed characteristics on her face
or how her body reacts to certain things I do.

  "Did you have a nice run?" I ask, trying to catch my breath while her body weight is restricting my stomach to hoist up and down evenly.

  "What are you doing?" My brows constrict because she has to be kidding me right now.

  "I think that question should be directed at you," I counter. "I thought we talked about this."

  She cowers a little, attempting to catch more oxygen. "No, we didn't."

  Liar.

  "Maybe it was during your fever," I bullshit because we both know that's when it was. She might have been out of it, but she knew everything that I was doing.

  Dude, she even fucking responded to my questions about being able to sit up when I started the water and that I was going to take her shirt off and nothing else.

  She heard me. She just didn't want to listen to me.

  "I got you pizza," I voice, gripping blades of grass because—well, it's either that or her hips. And if I do that, things might take a different turn on what my body wants to do next, and my mind will go ahead.

  It won't want to stop, probably agreeing within ten seconds with my cock, which is currently way too close to her ass for me to be clutching at body parts that aren't mine.

  And mine will be on my hard irrational body part tonight.

  "I'm not hungry," she deadpans, placing her hands on my sternum to push herself up.

  Mind meet body. This is where you two are supposed to fucking listen to each other because my fingers just death-gripped her T-shirt to keep her on top of me.

  "Don't be wasteful, sweetheart,” I cluck. “I ordered one just for you."

  "I'm a vegetarian."

  "Then pick the meat off." "

  “It touched the pizza already, I can't."

  My brow hoists. "How much do you wanna bet that you're lying right now?"

  "I don't know," she replies. "You don't have a very good track record right now at believing me, so you might not want to start gambling."

  I give her tee a little yank to close out some inches between us.

  She smells like my shampoo right now.

  I like more of her weight, now on my chest. It's making my dick swell, wanting to thrust up just to see what kind of feedback I can get from her.

  But I won't.

  I won't because this is so beyond fucked up that it's not even funny.

  This isn't a normal "we had a fight, and now we have to make up to save this relationship". We have none of that.

  Stormi and I didn't fight.

  We don't have to make up.

  And what we currently have is me fucking up and Stormi taking the brunt of all my rage and anger. There is nothing I can do, say, or sign that will ever get her to see me as anything but the asshole that busted in her house, stabbed her, flipped over the truck she was in and waterboarded her.

  All this and now that I know she’s innocent, thinking of an alternate reality of how things could've been different if we met another way.

  How I wished things were different.

  But things were muddled in my head.

  Shit, they always are.

  I'm a mind full of bad ideas and things I can't change because it was embedded in my DNA. I was made into a monster that hides in the dark and brings out the nightmares that people don't think about. That they might only see in the movies.

  I don't get the angel.

  I shouldn't get to touch the beauty in front of me who deserves more than the hand she was given with a shit father and a house that was filthy. The ending of this horror flick is that she’s going to move on, I’m going to stay exactly where I've always been—in my head, my past and with Reagan and her family. I'm a faceless anti-hero to the country, taking out the bad guys and never getting the credit for it.

  I preferred it that way. Stormi would get past this hopefully and have a family.

  I’m just the fucker that buys her pizza for her trouble and the fact that she has to deal with me for a little longer.

  Time that I’m going to soak up because I can, and we have nothing else better to do while I babysit her.

  Her breath hits my chin as I lean up to make sure that through whatever sort of excuse she wants to spill for later, I'm perfectly clear in my next words.

  "I bought pizza, and I have beer. You and I are going to have a nice little dinner date downstairs, and I'll watch whatever stupid little reality TV show you want because I'm flexible like that. I'm so happy that you're feeling better. So much that you can climb the gutters and almost break your neck to—"

  "I didn't climb the gutters," she conveys, tugging upward to give herself some space from me.

  Too fucking bad.

  I like her right here, which is going to be the closest I'll ever get to her anyways.

  Unless you want to count the half-drowning kiss I laid on her and the small two-point-five make-out sesh that we had at the shitty gas station.

  "How the hell did you get down then?" I gripe, my eyes narrowing in on her "I fucking hate you" scorn that's exquisitely painted on every feature of her face.

  "I climbed down the tree."

  She climbed down a fucking tree.

  "Great, so not only your neck, but you wanted to go big and try to break a leg or arm too. I'll keep that in mind next time and go padlock the windows shut now."

  "Don't," she stresses, balling my shirt with her fist. "I like the breeze."

  "Should've thought of that before, sweet—"

  She pulls back again, harder this time, but I'm an asshole, and she's stuck right here. "Stop calling me that."

  "That was a one day agreement," I retort. "Unless you do something for me."

  "Then I'll eat your pizza, just let go." She pushes off me again, and I let her this time.

  There's no point in being an asshole that's stronger than her by genetics and piss her off even more.

  I don't get the comforts of her being around. My only job is to be sure she makes it out of this unscathed.

  Rising from the ground, I don't bother tugging her along and back in the direction of the house. Instead, I say," If you run one more time, I'll make sure you're the one who lands on their back to break my fall."

  A scoff leaves her lips as I give her my back, making the quiet walk back to the house.

  The crickets sing around us, the moonlight sets the lighting for an easy trail to lead us, and when I don't hear her behind me, I turn to see her staring at the lake.

  I watch her peer over the glass-like surface reflecting the trees surrounding it and the moon. She shakes her head gently, crossing her arms along her chest because a cool breeze comes through and hits her body from off the water.

  "How are you able to look at this every time you pass it? To have to keep reliving memories of fear and helplessness of a loved one?"

  Her questions catch me off guard, but the quick answer is because I have to.

  Because it'll never happen again.

  That it can't because I'll turn into Satan himself if something happens to my sister.

  "You just do," I croon.

  "I wouldn't be able to do it," she replies. "It'd sink too deep within my veins." She slowly peers over at me. "What are you going to do with my dad?"

  Shit.

  So, I'm not ready to have this particular conversation yet. Bishop is adamant about offing him, and even though my word is the final one, I'm not ready to let him go just yet.

  Not only that, but I'm not sure I could look Stormi in the eyes and tell her that not only did I tip her world upside down with this experience, but I killed her dad too.

  "Hollis," I mutter instead. "I saw him with another blonde. Who could that be?"

  "I don't know." She shrugs. "We're not close like that. Like I've been trying to tell you."

  I step closer to her as she squeezes her arms tighter around her midriff. "I need you to think hard. I saw a woman walk into that house with Hollis. You were the only one there when I came in. If you're not who you say you a
re, I need—" Her face flashes over before her eyes widen. They steer towards the lake again, and she takes another step back.

  Her face contorts into something I can't put my finger on, but this time I don't think it's because of me.

  "Stormi." Her name is the overture to get her to focus back on me. She does, and the moment her eyes hit mine—she's pissed.

  "Bianca."

  My breathing quickens as goosebumps line my forearms. "Who?" Her expression hardens as she shrinks away from me some more. "Who is that?"

  Her shoulders begin to tense, and I can see her mind running a mile a minute. I feel uncomfortable, needing to push but aware that it might cause more stress for her.

  Unfortunately, it doesn't pull away what needs to be done.

  "Who is Bianca?" I ask again, staying grounded to my spot. I want her to help me on her own accord and not frighten her into spilling. However, if she doesn't tell me who she is, I may have no other choice but to.

  "She's..." Shifting her body weight around, her bad leg gives out, and she begins to fall to the ground. Catching herself, she attempts to straighten, but I'm already in her space, hands on her biceps.

  "C'mon," I urge gently. "Let's get you inside and look at that leg. Lucien is going to come back tonight and look at it."

  She wrings out of my hold, her chest heaving inconsistently as she rubs her bicep with her hands. "I want to go lay down."

  She doesn't pause for a reply, striding towards the house in a tight little ball of unsettled nerves. I blink a few times before peering over my shoulder to watch her ass sway in my sweatpants that are gigantic on her.

  Like I said before, I preferred her sweet pleas and begging to the bad memories that seem to stew inside her.

  They're about Hollis.

  I just don’t know how bad they are yet.

  I’ve denied a lot of things over the course of days or weeks—however long it’s been since I was dragged out of my house by the man in front of me—but this pizza...I’ve never had anything so amazing in my life.

  It may be because I can't remember when I ate normal food without a dirty fingerprint on it or a meal that wasn't in the frozen section. However, I'll never take pizza for granted again.

  And the moment I smelled it, I lost.