A Pound of Flesh (A Pound of Flesh #1)(113)

She was instantly mute, staring at him as though he were a stranger. She opened her mouth, but he didn’t let her speak.

“I was in the area near your father’s rehabilitation center. I’d been with Max, but we’d had a fight, and I—I’d left him at a friend’s. I was having a smoke and heard a scream, so I went to see what was going on and … I saw them. I saw you. I saw them hit him with the bat.”

“Stop,” Kat rasped.

“I saw the guy hit you—”

“Stop, Carter.”

“Your father told you to run and you didn’t. Why didn’t you run?”

“Fucking stop!”

“NO!”

He took three strides toward her and yanked her into his arms. She began to fight him. Her skin was slick from the rain, making it hard to get a good grip. She hit his chest and arms as she screamed at him to let her go. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

“I grabbed you,” he cried above her protests. “I grabbed you and ran with you. I’ve never been so scared, Kat. I had to drag you; you fought me so f*cking hard. You fought me like you’re doing now, like you did last night. But I couldn’t let you go. I couldn’t. They would have killed you, just like they killed him.”

Kat sobbed in his arms, buckling at the knees.

“We landed on the floor, and, your hair, Kat. Goddammit. Peach-scented hair. My Peaches.”

Her head snapped up and she screamed in his face. “GET OFF ME!”

[page]At the fury in her voice Carter released her and stepped back, only to receive a white-hot slap across his face.

For a few seconds the only sound around them was the rain pounding the trees. He couldn’t look at her and see the hate in her eyes. He was paralyzed, desolate, but he couldn’t stop telling her. He had to tell her.

“I held you,” he muttered, “for two f*cking hours, in a freezing-cold doorway, talking to you.”

“You,” Kat accused. “You stopped me from …” She could barely speak through the wracking gulps of air. “I could have— I could have … He was my father!”

Carter turned back to her, his hurt, angry tears merging silently with the rain running down his face. “He told you to run. I couldn’t watch them kill you.”

“You had no right!”

“No right?” he argued back, his voice rising to match hers. “Your father wanted you safe, Kat. I … I saved you!”

“No, you didn’t, Carter!” she shouted back. “No, you didn’t, because I f*cking died that night, too!”

Carter gaped at her. She may as well have punched him in the f*cking stomach. How could she think that?

A dangerous calm shrouded her. She glanced about herself. “I … I need … I.” She pushed past him toward her jacket and bag, her feet splashing in the huge puddles that had formed with the rain.

“Kat,” Carter implored. “Don’t … please!” He grabbed for her arm but she yanked it from his grasp and shoved him away.

“Don’t!” she cried with a finger in his face. “You f*cking liar! You’re just like the rest of them! Just don’t!”

He blinked at her. Stunned. “I never lied!” he yelled, fury rising through his body. “What are you talking about?”

“You never told me!” She pushed him again. “How long have you known and you never told me? That makes you a dirty. Fucking. Liar!”

Devastation curled Carter’s shoulders.