LITMIR.BIZ

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the porch.”

      “Sure they would have—with an armed guard.”

      “Not armed guard—escort,” he corrects as he stands in front of me. “And if you had made a break for it, I would have had to tackle you and then we’d be in all sorts of trouble. Could you imagine me putting my hands on your body?”

      He winks.

      Winks.

      Heat rushes up my neck and my earlobes burn.

      “I...” Clear my throat so I can at least pretend that comment didn’t slip under my skin. “I have no idea what you’re suggesting.”

      “Yeah, you do. Since you arrived at the funeral home, I’ve been looking at you and you’ve been looking at me. Too bad you didn’t go out the front door. Would have been fun, don’t you think? Me tackling you. Us rolling around. Tell me, Emily, are you the type of girl that doesn’t mind a good time?”

      His strong body over mine. My hands messing through his hair. His hands touching my face. Holy hell, my nerve endings tingle.

      The right side of his mouth tips up as if he can read my thoughts and his eyes wash over me like a lingering waterfall. That’s when it hits me, he’s playing a game with me. “You’re full of yourself.”

      “Might be, but I’m not wrong, plus for thirty seconds you weren’t having a pity party. So what happened with your escape plans? Did your momma tell you that you can’t cross the street without holding her hand?”

      I throw him a mock smirk, but oh how I wish there was a road to cross and that was my problem. Instead, there’s woods. Lots of woods plus lots of darkness. Woods and darkness terrify me. Bad things live in the woods. Evil things exist in the dark. The inside of that cabin didn’t feel any safer so I opted for the bench with the glow of the lights from the utility pole near the house.

      For some, hell might be being buried alive in a coffin. For others, hell would be being covered to their heads in a tank full of spiders. For me, it’s this. Encircled and enshrouded by claustrophobic darkness and foreboding woods. Dead things lie in wait in that black void.

      In that house, a woman is battling death and also promising to tear apart the foundation on which I stand. Inside isn’t an option. Neither is out. I’m here on this bench because I didn’t know where else to go.

      Oz assesses me. The same way my parents used to for weeks after they found me in that hole at eight. “You suck at running away. I found you in less than ten seconds.”

      “Are you going to continue to rub it in that I failed?”

      “I was going to, but that question stole my thunder.” Oz eases beside me and I curl into a ball toward the corner. Even with that move, the heat from his thighs wiggles past my jean shorts and caresses my skin. I rub my hand along my cold arms. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I crave to crawl up next to him and live in that heat for rest of my life.

      He sprawls the massive wingspan of his arms along the back of the bench then extends his long legs, kicking one booted foot on top of the other. His fingers “accidently” swipe across my bare shoulder and it causes a tickle in my bloodstream.

      Oz commands awareness like no one I have ever met before. There’s no denying his presence. No denying that his body is close to perfect. No denying that since I laid eyes on him I’ve wondered what he looks like with his shirt off.

      Completely impervious to how his nearness affects me, he stares straight ahead and watches the sunrise. “Ever seen one of these before?”

      According to Olivia, yes, but I shake my head no. I’ve been up before dawn, but I’ve never sat and admired how the stars are chased away by the sun rising on the horizon.

      “Me neither,” he says. “Mind if I watch it with you?”

      “If I say no, will you leave?”

      “No.” At least he’s honest. “But I’m trying to at least make you feel like you have a choice.”

      “But I don’t.”

      “But you don’t,” he repeats. “Just a few more hours, Emily, and you can go back to your life and I can go back to mine. We can both pretend we never met.”

      That’s all I want. “You don’t like me, do you?”

      “You make the people in my life sad and in the brief few hours I’ve known you, you keep racking up points in the heartache category. So, no, I’m not your biggest fan.”

      I bite the inside of my lip and focus on my knees. It shouldn’t bother me what a punked-out moron thinks of me, but it does.

      “Don’t look like that,” he pushes. “You could have killed me with some of the glares you’ve sent my way. Are you going to say you like me?”

      He has been an ass, but he’s also saved me so instead of answering immediately, I look at him. Oz wears a black T-shirt with the word Conflict scrawled in some fancy script. His jeans are loose and he sports the same black studded belt from yesterday. His arms are chiseled like he works out often and he keeps a hand near the knife at his side. Oz shifts as if he’s uncomfortable.

      “I don’t know you,” I finally answer.

      Oz blinks like I said something profound, then returns his gaze to the east and appears to choose to ignore the past few exchanges. “You can go to sleep if you want. The window to that spare bedroom behind you is open. You can crawl in since you have an issue with doors.”

      “Why were those guys at my motel?”

      “The bed, Emily. Do you want it or not?”

      Like Cyrus earlier, he’s not going to answer. The bed is tempting, but... “No, thank you. I’m going to wait for my parents and then I’ll go to sleep.”

      “They’re safe,” Oz says, and I choose to believe him because the hollowness that happens inside me at the thought of any other option is too harsh to bear.

      “You could be kidnapping me and trying to do that thing where I grow to love my captors. I’ve seen it on TV before.”

      “You caught us. We knew you were going to walk out of the motel at three in the morning and we created this situation to freak you out into loving us. That’s how fucked up we are.”

      “Why were you there?”

      “Maybe I was using a room.”

      I flat-out frown at the thought and I don’t understand why. My fingers tap my thigh and the picture in my hand moves. I seriously hate Oz and Olivia, and I shouldn’t hate Olivia, because she’s dying. “How far along is Olivia’s cancer?”

      “Too far.” His voice is why-the-hell-did-you-bring-that-up clipped and I try to pretend I don’t exist.

      The chatter of bullfrogs, crickets and the wind. It’s what’s between us. That and the fact I asked about Olivia’s health.

      “I promise if you go to sleep, nothing bad will happen to you,” Oz offers.

      That’s where he’s wrong. If I go to sleep, I can’t stop the worst from occurring. Staying awake is the only way I can chase the nightmares away. I am, like I was for twelve hours when I was eight, left to fend for myself. I shiver with the memory.

      A light breeze dances across the yard and the picture Olivia gave me drops to the wooden porch. Oz leans forward faster than me, swipes it up, then pauses. After a second, he hands me the photo and I shove it into my pocket.

      “Where’d you get that?” he asks.

      “Olivia.”

      He’s silent and he’s watching me and I despise the expression that tells me he sees things and knows things he shouldn’t. “Don’t tell Eli Olivia gave you that.”

      “Why?”

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