The Glass Arrow(23)

I look across the brook towards the barn, but now the Driver is gone, too.

I could run inside. The automatic door may let me in, but I still can’t get through the main exit because of the code box with its acid keys. I’ve failed. Yet again. Because of the Driver. And what’s worse than the failure is knowing that every time I screw up, it makes my next attempt to escape that much harder.

I sink to the ground and press the heel of my hand into my eye socket. The pressure has lessened, but my head is still aching, and my cheek stings. At least my nose was avoided.

Someone is back outside, and I lift my head, expecting to see Brax nosing out to check on me. But it’s not Brax. It’s the Driver. He’s striding towards me, this time with purpose.

He hesitates only momentarily at the brook, then jumps over.

But my mind reverts back to the danger at hand. The tricks are over, now he’s ready to get on with it. I’m still pinned in the corner. Why didn’t I run when I first saw him coming? Why don’t I ever run from him? Now even the Watcher can’t help me.

My pulse begins to climb, and soon I’m breathing hard. I bend to retrieve a rock, but this time when I throw it, he simply ducks out of the way. He moves as fast as a Watcher, I swear.

I guard myself in the only way I know how. I crouch down, ready to spring like a cornered wildcat. The Watcher may be too big to beat, but I will not let this Driver better me.

He’s five paces away when I pounce. My muscles quiver, as though I’ve just touched the electric fence and been given the shocks. He’s expected this and ducks low, guarding his gut. I reach with the chain, but he slaps it aside. My nails catch him around the face and scratch at the skin of his neck. I bite, and get nothing but a dry mouthful of fabric.

He shoves me back and I charge him again, but he slips to the side, locking my head beneath his arm. I twist, but he won’t let go. Then, somehow, he’s pinned me against the wall. Both of my wrists are trapped in one of his large, impossibly strong hands. My legs are locked together, squeezed between his. His whole body has smashed mine against the plaster. I can feel his heart beat in my own chest. Feel it as though it is my own.

I’ve never been this close to a man before. Not Silent Lorcan. Not Bian. I’m petrified as to what he’s about to do.

I struggle, but he’s locked me in place so tightly I can barely move. I tilt my chin up to see his face. There’s no hunger in his eyes like I’ve seen in the men at auction. No deadened stare like the Watcher. Instead his expression is angry.

Before I can make sense of it, he jerks back. The lump on his throat bobs. He bites his bottom lip so hard it turns white.

He points at my jaw and I flinch, but plant my feet. I touch my face, already feeling the heat and swelling from the Watcher’s slap.

“Yeah,” I say. “He got me. So what?”

He turns around, paces away, and then comes back. My muscles have all flexed, but I don’t move. I don’t know what’s come over me.

I don’t even move when his hand lifts and he touches my cheek with his fingertips, gently, like my skin is made of eggshells. He pushes aside my nest of hair and looks over my jaw. Over what the Watcher’s done to me.

I gape into his Driver eyes, and for the first time I notice how there are flecks of copper in the deep brown.

The anger in his stare is dying, and in its place comes pity.





CHAPTER 6

“STOP THAT,” I SAY.

My heart’s pounding in my ears, harder than it did with the Watcher here.

His fingers brush over my eyebrow and a spark of pain lights me up. When he pulls away there’s blood on the side of his hand.

It brings me back from wherever I went, and I punch him, hard as I can, in the gut.

All the air empties from his chest in one hard grunt; it’s the first sound I’ve ever heard him make. As he staggers back, I scramble for the ground and pick up a sharp, fist-sized rock, and the jagged knife handle I’ve left just under the surface of the dirt against the plaster wall. He makes no attempt to stop me. His hands are resting on his thighs and he’s bent over, still trying to catch his breath.

“You don’t touch me,” I say, my voice wobbly. “Nobody touches me without my say-so, got it?”

I’ve knocked the wind out of him. It’s now that I’ve got my best advantage. But I don’t attack. Just like I didn’t run when he’d come striding across the yard.

“I said, you got it?” I nearly shout. I want him to nod, leave, anything to show he understands.

He glances up at the sound of my voice, a grimace pulling at his mouth.

“You ruined it,” I say quietly. “I was this close to that key. I was almost out of here, and you ruined it.”

His head tilts to the side.

“What do you want from me?” My fists are shaking now. My wrists are warm from where he grasped them and my cheek is still tingling from his touch.

It doesn’t make sense. I didn’t ask for his kindness, if that’s what this is. And if he thinks he’s going to try to make me break the purity rule he’s got another thing coming.

My ma taught me one thing from the beginning: My body is mine. My own. No one else’s. Just because someone thinks they have rights to it, doesn’t make it true. I thought I understood that before, but here, in this place, it’s become more clear than ever how right she was. My flesh and blood—it’s the only thing I own, and I’ll defend it until I can’t fight anymore.