dawn

Chapter 37

Ariel

Click.

I looked up, wherever up was in my world. I noticed the delicious warmth around me, like I’d just stepped outside into the sun filled days of California.

Still, it was a click and it demanded that I sat up to attend to it. I sat up with a stretching moan and turned back. Giant Edmund was lying there, against the back of the couch, sleeping and snoring lightly. He looked like such a sweet child. I smiled at him for a moment and it waned away, appreciating my latest predicament. How could someone so beautiful be so much trouble?

I turned toward the door. Eric was looking back, going out the door. How long had he been waiting? I stood up and Edmund’s light snoring drifted away.

“Nice, you guys slept together on my couch,”

“Oops?” I added an impish smile.

He glanced over to Edmund again.

“Sorry I fell asleep with Edmund. We’re just friends,” I shrugged, unable to not find amusement in his gentle teasing. At least I was pretending to.

“I don’t think that made me feel any better,” he smiled tiredly.

“And I don’t like it,”

“He’s been a good bodyguard,” Eric stole me from my memory. “He might be less of a target than I am to GRAY”

I groaned, sulking. “Be careful. Okay?” I stepped closer.

He watched me very meaningfully.

My heart kicked a little and I turned down. “I better say goodnight to Ms. Armani so we can head back to my house,” I stepped through the threshold, passing him.

Eric

Edmund sat up once her footsteps, clamoring and distancing, vanished upstairs. He’d been pretending to be asleep since she woke up. He got up, eyebrows drawn together darkly and the tension rose as we faced each other in the now narrow threshold.

Automatically, without getting into his head, I realized what was going on. The daisy, her distant dreamy thoughts, and the way she trusted him even when he’d been with Angeline.

I wanted to tear his throat out. I didn’t even feel like I could hesitate. I wasn’t expecting such a strong response but I just wanted to kill him.

He knew that too, apparently before I did so they were close.

“I promise I won’t make it easy for you. You won’t have her,”

“I won’t need to try very hard after you’ve left her for so long,” he bumped into me forcefully and I had to count backwards to stop myself from ruining the downstairs hallway with his blood. The stupid kid was lucky that I had thought of her, how much it would hurt if I tore him up, like it had the night her uncle left.

A growl banged in my chest and I slammed the door shut. The glass shattered into the curtain.

I tossed a pebble and it bounced off her window. Like the sun rising, a face appeared and I saw the moon. The kid was asleep. I could feel him snoring. Perfect. “Get ready. We’re going out for a little while,”

“Um…” she played with her lips.

“Please?”

She blinked with widened eyes.  “I’ll be down soon,” she promised and shut the doors, hanging the herb on the clasp again.

“Why are you taking me out?” she asked with a gentle smile. Her cheeks tinted gently.

We’d been hiking through the Graveyard for awhile, making other sorts of conversation but she’d finally hit what she wanted to ask.