Page 45 of Touch of Hate
She’s fighting me. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
“Fucking stop,” I grunt close to her ear, though I doubt she hears me.
Not when she’s jerking her shoulders back and forth, trying her best to swing her fists, even though I’ve pinned her arms against her body, holding her in place. She may as well try to hit one of the trees surrounding us for all the good it does.
She draws as deep a breath as she can, the steel bands of my arms restricting her, and I realize almost too late what she’s going to do. My reflexes are as sharp as they ever were. Even so, I barely have time to clamp a hand over her mouth before she lets out a harrowing scream.
I’m grateful to the heavy rain now pelting us like bullets, big, fat, and heavy, and along with it, a clap of thunder that would have drowned her out anyway. There’s no way anyone inside can hear her—I could march a band through this garden, and there’s a chance no one would notice.
Mother Nature herself is on my side. The rain will wash away my footprints and the tracks from my tires. I couldn’t have chosen a better night, though there was no choice in the matter. It was now or never.
Everything is on our side, down to the neglected gate embedded in the garden wall. It’s covered in vines that have grown thick and healthy for years, camouflaging the gate until it blends into the vine-covered stone to either side. Somebody might have known it was there at one time, but it’s been forgotten for years, and the rusted lock was easy enough to pick.
Sometimes, I wonder if Xander is as on top of things as he wants everyone to believe. Sure, he can post guards all around the compound, and they can watch all they want. But when it’s late at night, and their reflexes are a little slow—especially when I haven’t shown so much as a hair on my ass, so they are bound to start questioning whether there’s a chance I’ll show up at all—it takes nothing to sneak up behind a man and knock him unconscious.
It’s all going according to plan.
It confirms what I’ve always known: this is meant to be. She’s meant to be with me and only me. Everything has come together to make this night possible.
She is the only fly in the ointment.
Apparently, she hasn’t gotten the memo as she’s still fighting; her bare feet slide over the wet grass as she struggles to get back to the patio, knocking me off balance. My boots make deep grooves in what’s becoming dangerously slick mud, and it’s all I can do to keep from screaming at her to stop before we both end up face-first in the muck.
Yet that’s precisely where we end up when my balance gives way due to her frantic struggling. Even now, my instinct is to protect her, and I manage to twist to the right and avoid crushing her beneath my body, the two of us landing on our sides. She slides against me and almost gets loose for the briefest instant, but I tighten my grip and roll, pinning her beneath me.
Panic threatens to erase my confidence. Why is she acting this way? Have I been away too long? While it feels like an eternity, she can’t have changed this much. The depth of her love for me can’t have gone shallow. Not my Scarlet.
If she’s angry with me for having seemingly abandoned her all this time, we can work that out. She’ll understand once I have a chance to explain myself.
I just need that chance, and she’s not giving it to me.
I’ve never been one to react well to being misunderstood.
Perhaps that’s why I see red when she somehow manages to drive an elbow into my ribs. I have never had a reaction like this to her, but she’s never driven me to this point, either. Refusing to give in though it’s clear she wanted to at first.
She’s so damn stubborn—that much hasn’t changed.
And while her stubbornness has threatened to drive me insane in the past, that’s nothing compared to this. Not when my entire fucking life is on the line. I haven’t taken all these pains to go unseen for two years only to be discovered in the garden, covered in mud.
The possibility of discovery and knowing she would be the reason for it is what makes me pull away. The wind blows hard enough that the trees seem to bend, flower beds pummeled by sheets of rain coming down hard enough to knock the petals from the blooms.
The most beautiful bloom of all is now mud-covered, hair plastered to her skull and face. I take in her heart-shaped face. She’s pale as a ghost, the color draining from her in what I know is extreme fear. I’ve seen that look on her face before; I just never thought I’d be the one to put it there.
How could she be so afraid of me? Doesn’t she know better?
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I try to tell her, but we may as well be in that dark corner all over again. I doubt she can hear me between the violent storm and her own fear ringing in her head.
Only this time, there’s no calming her down, no demonstrating the deep breaths she needs to take. She’s dead set on fighting me. Lightning streaks the sky, turning night to day, for one eerie second, and the almost feral look in her eyes makes me pity her and hate myself all at once.
Time is ticking by. I have to get her out of here. Sure, I’ve been lucky, but do I want to test that luck much longer?
The tension inside me expands. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do it this way. For a moment, I considered not bringing the syringe. Call me a romantic, but for some reason, I imagined her happily agreeing to run away with me. Only the memory of how impossible she can sometimes be was enough to make me bring the sedative along.
I hate to use it, but this isn’t my fault.
None of it is. I’ve only ever done what I was compelled to do.
My fingers shake as I pull the syringe from my inside pocket and pop the cap off the needle with my thumb.