Through the Fire (Daughter of Fire, #1)(4)

“Will you please answer me?” he asked in a graveled whisper.

I raised my gaze from the long fingers of his hands pressed against the counter in front of me and met his eyes. “I’m sorry, Sir,” I said, still clinging to the vestiges of hope that he didn’t really know who I was.

“Sir?” he sneered. “Evie, please?” The way his lips wrapped around my name and the quiet, pleading tone of his voice made me take a step closer to him as if he’d used an invisible cord to draw me toward him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He looked over his shoulder at the security camera trained onto the register. “Not here. Can you meet me later?”

I shook my head, I couldn’t risk it. I needed to get home, and then Dad and I needed to leave. Home isn’t safe—he knows where you live.

And yet, you’re still here. I frowned at the thought. Not that I was going to ask him to explain his reasons for not attacking sooner, but I couldn’t help wonder why was I still alive.

“Please?” One of his hands shot forward and grabbed my wrist. He didn’t even flinch at the warmth of my skin, but then he had to have expected it. After all, for whatever reason, he was the catalyst for it. “I just want to talk to you.”

“No.”

“Please?” he pleaded. His tone was desperate and it disarmed me.

“I—I can’t.”

Using his hold on my wrist, he pulled me closer to the counter until I was leaning forward and we were almost cheek-to-cheek. “I understand why,” he murmured against the shell of my ear. His warm breath washed over my skin, making my body quake. It was almost as strong as the tremors I experienced over thoughts of what he might do now that he’d found me again. “But I’m not going anywhere until you do.”

A cold shiver raced along my spine at his meaning, and I nodded robotically. The meeting was confirmation of what I’d dreaded ever since I’d seen the flowers on my stoop.

He’d found me.

Is that camera the only reason I’m still alive?

“You will have to listen to me eventually,” he murmured, and then, almost as soon as the words had left his mouth, he was at the door. He cast one last furtive look over his shoulder before sweeping out of the store. I leaned heavily against the counter, finally breathing freely again. At least until his final words settled over me. He’d said something similar once before, and, with the dreams I’d had of him still fresh in my memory, I could easily recall it.





CLAY HAD always been able to make my heart stop for tiny moments of time; only now it was for completely different reasons. For the rest of my shift, every noise caused my heart to leap and stutter in staccato bursts. Whenever the door opened, I had to double-check that it wasn’t him coming back to finish the task that he’d failed to do twice already.

One thing was clear to me. If Clay didn’t kill me before I reached home, there was no valid excuse to stay in Charlotte for a moment longer. I would have closed the shop to leave earlier, but I wasn’t ready for a confrontation with Clay. It was an unrealistic thought, but part of me hoped he would disappear if he had to wait long enough.

I scoffed at my own naivety. He’s waited two years, what’s another couple of hours?

At least four times over the course of the afternoon, I’d gone to door to survey the area in front of the shop. Even though I couldn’t see him, his gaze burned into me. Every minute that passed in that tortured state deepened my resolve to leave the instant I arrived home.





CHAPTER THREE


BY THE time the Mr. Lewis, the shop’s owner, came in for the evening shift, my nerves were completely frayed. I asked whether there was anything that he needed me to do, just so I would have an excuse not to leave by myself, but he’d just patted my hand and told me to go get some rest because I looked tired. After leaving the shop and heading toward home, I paid special attention to everyone around me. Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief that Clay hadn’t found me alone and unarmed during my walk, he stepped out from a concealed doorway and fell into step beside me.

Even as I tried to ignore him and walk faster, I glanced around furtively in the hope that there would be someone else around—some witness that would still his hand and keep me alive long enough to get back to Dad and escape.

“I need to talk to you,” Clay said.

I crossed my arms together to force myself to not reach for him and quickened my steps. “We have nothing to say to each other,” I hissed. “Besides, I think you made yourself clear the last time we spoke. If you’re here because of some sick sense of duty, just do it and stop tormenting me already.”

He reached out for my arm, using my own momentum to swing me around to face him before taking a handful of steps in my direction, forcing me backward until he’d cornered me against an alley wall with my hands pinned against the wall above my head. The moment I was trapped, I stuck my chin out defiantly.

If he was going to kill me, he would have to look me in the eye and do it. A familiar wave of heat washed over my skin, culminating in my fingers. If he thought I would be easy to destroy, he was mistaken. I wouldn’t go down without a fight.

The heat racing over my body wasn’t enough to force him to release me though.

“I’m sorry for what happened that day,” he said. “I . . . I can’t even tell you what’s been going through my mind since then.”