Page 47 of Run, Little Rabbit

“I know you’re there, Echo,” I say softly. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” she replies. “But I want to. This is my kind of fun.”

Her voice is breathy and tinged with excitement. Maybe she’s just as mad as the twins.

“Are you going to run?” I ask, picking at the bark to keep my fingers busy. I find that when my hands are busy, my mind becomes quiet, and the mania that sometimes threatens to overtake me stays in the locked box that I try to keep it hidden in.

“Yes. I’m just catching my breath.” She pauses, but I can sense her holding back on something. “Why did you leave?”

Leave? Did she mean when I left the twins? “What do you mean?”

She sighs, and I can hear her feet scraping against the ground. “It doesn’t matter. It was a stupid question.”

“No such thing as a stupid question, Echo. I left because your brothers scared the shit out of me.”

“They hurt you?”

“Only when I asked them to.” They knew how to work my body over without damaging it, and they played out every single one of my fantasies whenever I asked. After a couple of weeks with them I had tried more things sexually than I ever had before. For that, I’d be forever grateful, but their lack of rules and disregard for my actual well-being made me wary. “I didn’t like who I became while in their company. My moral compass disappeared, and with it, my self-worth.”

“I understand.”

“Why did you ask?”

She pauses again, and I stretch my hand around the tree, seeking hers. My little finger brushes hers, making her breath hitch. “It was nice just having someone in the house that wasn’t family, you know?”

No, I didn’t know, but I could guess at what she meant. To always be on the outside looking in and be second best to her brothers. Must have been a tough dynamic to grow up in. Now I kind of got why she was more capable than she seemed. Having to push harder, train harder and fight harder than anyone else just to prove a point. That her being a woman didn’t diminish her abilities to have a place in the family.

Anger rushes through my veins, making my blood fuckingboil. If I ever get my hands on Rory Quinn, I’ll kill him.

“Is it time to run again?” she asks, wrapping her little finger around mine like a childhood promise.

I step around the tree and get my first proper look at her. Her hair is wild, scratches decorate the bottom of her legs and the sides of her arms from where she’s run through the bushes, but it’s her eyes that hold me captive. They’re bright and wild, swimming with a ferocious determination, and for the first time, I feel a shred of doubt. Perhaps the brute was right.

Perhaps she would destroy us all.

“I’ll count to ten,” I say, my voice a little breathy with anticipation.

Her pink lips pull into a wide smile as she takes a step backwards.

“One. Two. Best start running, Echo.”

She turns on her heel and darts off deeper into the woods, her red hair fanning out behind her like a crown of flames. I barely make it all the way to ten before I’m running after her, a grin on my face and my heart pounding in my chest.

Chapter Twenty

Echo

Angel’s feet crunch into the ground, and I can hear him eating up the measly bit of distance I managed to put between us.

I dart behind a humongous tree and wait. This time, I’m not going to let him get close. Literally or emotionally. What the hell was that little heart-to-heart about? Jesus. Touching pinkies like we’re afraid to get caught.

Who the hell am I kidding? It was incredibly sweet and something I didn’t know I needed. No one has ever treated me with such tenderness since my mum died when I was five. I have such fleeting memories of her that I sometimes forget what it was like to be loved. Most of the time I’m just fighting to be seen.

His footsteps slow and eventually stop on the other side of the tree. He’s literally three feet away, and my heart is fuckingracing.I can’t slow it down. I’m concentrating too much on keeping my breaths quiet.

I take a slow step around the trunk, silently positioning myself behind him as he inches forward.

Come on, Angel. Just one more step.