Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
I freeze.
What the hell?
His jaw tenses. “I’ve gotta go. Leave. Us. Alone!” he shouts, teeth gnashing like he’s considering lunging at me for a bite before he rushes off, leaving me wondering what the ever-loving hell just happened.
18
ALEXEI
Where is he?
I glance around once more and see Matteo heading through the entrance, panic in his expression. I hop up from my seat, and as I approach, I note the sweat beading his forehead.
“Matteo? What’s wrong?”
He hurries past me and slides into the booth, opening his bottle of water and taking a swig. I return to my seat across from him, my head spinning. What the hell could have happened while he was in the restroom?
“I just saw Finnegan,” he explains.
“Did he do something? Did he threaten you?” Even as I say the words, they feel ridiculous. Finnegan’s a friendly guy, but who knows what the Saints might’ve put him up to.
He shakes his head. “Something’s wrong with him. He was shouting at me and—”
“Finnegan? Shouting?”
“Yes, but no. It couldn’t have been him. His eyes turned dark. Black like Farras’s when I saw him at the foot of my bed, and like what you said I looked like when he was inside me. It seemed like there was something in him, like with me. What if once Farras left my body, he found a new host? You think that’s possible? Or…I don’t know, maybe there are other psychos running around taking bodies from people who have been practicing magic.”
“We shouldn’t jump to too many conclusions.”
“Am I supposed to pretend I didn’t just see that something’s in him?”
“That’s not what I meant. That’s a safe assumption, but I don’t know that we can speculate on what that is. It could be anything.”
“You’re right. Sorry, just feels like it’s one wild thing after another.”
It’s been a tough few days for him, so I get why he’s on edge. We both are.
I reach over the table and rest my hand on his, squeezing gently.
He takes a breath, and his tension relaxes. After a few moments, he flips his hand over, taking mine. He does it so naturally and effortlessly.
Fuck, I have more important things to think about right now than Matteo holding hands with me.
“We should tell the Sinners,” I say. “They got Farras out of you, so they can get this thing out of him.”
Matteo nods. “Agreed. Let’s text them. Meet at the church. See what they say.”
*
We reach the loose board along the side of the church, and Matteo pulls it back, motioning for me to go ahead. As I step in, I feel his hand against the small of my back. Like when he held my hand, it’s a gesture I note.
Once I’m inside, I turn back to him. As he relaxes his hand, it’s like he didn’t even notice what he was doing. Is this how he’s gonna be now that we’ve admitted we like each other?
I hope so.
I lead the way to the cellar. The Sinners aren’t here yet, so Matteo plops in a chair by a desk, but I can’t sit while I’m this anxious.
“It’s weird having to see Brad and Luke now,” I confess, pacing.
“I hear you. It’s been weird seeing Brad around. Although it must be different for you with the whole…spying-on-them thing.”
That truth makes my guilt burn again.
“Wanna talk about it?” Matteo asks.
My gaze meets his, and he’s looking at me, not like someone who’s being polite, but like he really wants to be here for me. Part of me wants to tuck this away with everything else I keep to myself, but maybe because I’ve already let Matteo see so much of me, so much more than most, I don’t.
“When Preston first told me what I had to do, it didn’t seem so messy. These Sinner guys were gonna go after Luke, and I had to protect him. I was doing a good thing, I thought. And I met Luke, and even right from the start… You ever met someone and it’s like you’re certain you must have been friends in another life?”
“I felt that way with Brad freshman year. We hit it off so effortlessly.”
“Same. At first, we’d watch movies together and order takeout and just talk about shit. And I wasn’t lying to him about my life. I was honest about who I was. Then Luke got recruited into the Sinners, and Preston told me the deal was off if I warned him. Maybe I should have, but by that point, I was so close. Then there was that wild night, and Cody healed me, and that got me thinking I might have been wrong about them. And after that, I started to see them as more than assholes trying to hurt Luke. I could see myself being friends with these guys.”
Matteo pushes to his feet. “None of that makes you a bad person. Like you said, you thought you were helping him.”