Slow Agony (Assassins, #2)(20)

He whirled to face me. “No.”

“No?”

“No, you’re not.”

“How do you know how I feel?”

“If you were in love with me, if you were ever in love with me, you wouldn’t have—” He broke off. “This is why I don’t want to talk about it. It only makes me upset, and it doesn’t change anything.” He turned back around and walked up to the door. He knocked.

I hurried after him. “I never stopped being in love with you.”

“Stop talking,” he said. He knocked again.

“What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that you still have feelings for me too? Are you afraid that if we talk, you’ll remember that?”

The door opened and Sloane peeked her head out. “Oh, you’re here.”

Griffin shoved me through the door. “Keep her out of trouble. I’ll be back in two weeks.” He turned to go.

“You don’t want to come inside?” said Sloane.

“You aren’t even going to say goodbye to me?” I asked.

Griffin kept walking down the sidewalk, back towards his car. “Thanks for taking her.”

“Griffin!” I called after him.

“See you, Griffin,” said Sloane. She pulled me away from the door and closed it. She grinned at me. “Probably better to let him go.”

I sagged against the door. “All I do is let him go.”

“Oh,” she said, “you’re still into him, aren’t you?”

“Never stopped.”

She made a sympathetic face. “I’m sorry. I know all about that feeling.”

“What feeling?”

“Liking a guy who’s not liking you back?” She pointed at herself. “Me? I’m always friend zoned. It’s always like, ‘But Sloane, we’re such pals. I don’t see you that way.’” She shrugged. “I figure it’s just because I’m a better shot than they are, and I own cooler guns. Also, I have a scary brother.” She gestured to the staircase that was adjacent to the front door.

Silas was coming down the steps. Sloane was right. He did look scary. He was burly and muscled like ex-Op Wraith assassins tended to be. He had dark hair which he wore in a ponytail, dark eyes, and a few piercings. His eyebrow. His labret. His ears, which were stretched to fit bigger gauge jewelry. But none of that was what made him look scary. It was his expression—unconcerned but deadly. “So. You’re the chick who broke Griffin’s heart.”

I opened my mouth to speak. Nothing came out.

Silas trooped down the rest of the steps and sauntered past us.

“Don’t mind him,” said Sloane. “He takes a little while to warm up to people.”

“Okay,” I said.

Sloane started up the steps. “Come on. I’ll show you your room.”

I followed her. “It’s just you and Silas in this house?”

She grinned over her shoulder. “It’s awesome, right? Silas and I hacked into some of the Op Wraith accounts after the whole place went bust and got a nice chunk of change. We figured that investing in a house in a college town is always a good idea. After we graduate, we can rent it out.”

“So, you’re going to school?”

She laughed. “Yup. Well, it’s break now. We finished our finals last week. But, yeah. Silas and I are both doing the college thing. It’s way more fun than the assassin thing.”

“I bet it is,” I said.

We got to the top of the steps. There were two doors and another set of steps.

“This is my room,” she said, pointing to one of the doors. She pointed to the other. “And my bathroom. Silas’ room is downstairs. Yours is all the way at the top.”

“This place has three stories?” I’d hardly been able to tell from outside.

“Four, if you count the basement,” she said. “It’s finished. I think it was supposed to be like a party room, but we work out down there and stuff.” She plunged up the next set of steps.

“This is a cool house,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said.

The room I was staying in was small but cozy. It had a single bed, a dresser, and its own TV. There was also a tiny bathroom off to one side with its own shower. I turned around in a circle. “This is just a guest room?”

She shrugged. “We talked about getting a roommate, but we don’t really need one. We asked Griffin if he wanted to move in, but he seems to like having his own space.”

I turned to her. “Thanks for letting me stay. I appreciate it.”

“Sure,” she said. “You were injected with the serum, right?”

I nodded. That seemed like a strange way to take the conversation.

“Well, I think it might be cool to have someone else to talk about it with. Someone who’s not a guy, you know? Because most of the Op Wraith assassins were male.”

Oh. Okay. She was offering me friendship. “Yeah. I get that.”

She straightened a knick knack on the dresser. “I don’t have a lot of friends that are girls.”

I smiled. “Me either. The ones I have seem to keep getting killed.”

She smiled back. “I’m hard to kill.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s true.”