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“You don’t wanna know,” he insists.

Now I’m the one huffing in frustration. “I was the one they tried to kill, so I’d like to know who exactlytheyare.”

Dante speeds down the road, much too fast for my liking, and I hold on to the chest strap of my seatbelt for comfort.

“Doesn’t matter right now. I just need to get you somewhere safe,” he replies.

“Where?”

He doesn’t answer.

I decide not to bother with asking any more questions. I’m still trembling, and suddenly the realization of what happened hits me. My knees bounce, and I go over it again and again in my mind.

My hand on the door handle.

The beeping.

Dante crashing into me.

Being pushed into the ground and covered, guarded,protected.

My eyes burn with tears, and I try to hold them back. All the lights are blurry as we fly past them and my vision grows cloudy.

I’m not sure how long we’re in the car, fifteen minutes at most perhaps, but finally we pull up to a house that seems to be on the edge of town. It’s a small, unsuspecting building with a one-car garage, two stories, and a wooden front porch with a swing on it. I’m not sure why, but as I stare out the window at it, that swing is what I decide to focus on.

Dante gets out of the car, and I see him brush his fingers through his hair as he crosses in front and then opens my door.

“Come on,” he says quietly.

I listen, unbuckling my seatbelt and following him inside even though my legs feel like Jell-O. Anxiety is heavy in my chest, and there’s something else there, too…something that makes my throat tight and my body feel heavy.

“You alright?” Dante asks as we get to the stairs.

I put a hand on the railing and nod.

“Let’s get inside.” He puts his arm around my back, and I feel his hand slide to my lower back. It ignites a heat there, one that contradicts everything else I’m feeling in this moment.

Dante leads me up the stairs and unlocks the door before guiding me inside. He flicks on a light at the entrance of the hallway. The perfectly bland, standard suburban house greets me.

“What is this?” I ask him quietly.

Once we’re both inside, I hear him close and lock the door.

“A safe house,” he replies. “You’ll be safe here while we get this shit sorted out.”

“Are you going to explain ‘this shit?’” I turn to look at him.

Dante’s face is scratched, his dark hair a sweaty mess around his face. I suddenly forget about the why and how of it all.

“You’re bleeding,” I whisper, and step closer to him. I lift a hand and brush my fingers along the blood at the side of his neck where he must’ve gotten hit with debris.

“It’s nothing,” he insists.

“Let’s sit down.” I grab his hand and walk farther down the hallway, looking to the left, expecting a living room but finding a kitchen instead. To the right is the living room—small and quaint, with a deep brown leather couch with several flannel throw blankets as the main star of the room. Everything else fades from my mind right now.

“Let me see your eyes,” Dante tells me as we sit down. He turns on a small orange-tinted lamp on the side table nearby.

“What?” I ask.