Page 40 of His to Burn

Jack pushed off from the conference table where he was leaning and started to pace. He was thinking, and as anxious as I was to be privy to those thoughts, I held my tongue and let him work it out.

My instinct was to push, explain, argue him down until he came around to my way of thinking.

But I knew that wouldn’t work with him.

Just like I knew I couldn’t get to Judge Hanlon’s without him.

I hated that.

Hated that my future hinged on someone else. But I was also realistic. Jack was my way out, and it would be foolish—suicidal—to pretend otherwise.

“It could work,” he finally muttered, a thick finger stroking his jaw.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but I would take what I could get.

“Itwillwork,” I said with a certainty that I didn’t necessarily believe, but one that I would indulge, because entertaining any other thought was completely beyond the question.

“So how do we get past those things?” I asked, glancing at the monitor.

Jack went silent.

Or more silent would probably be the more accurate way to describe it. It wasn’t like he had been gregarious before, but he was deep in contemplation now.

“They move slow. Uncoordinated. But enough of them together…”

I thought back to the carnage in the hallway, to the frantic, unyielding, unrelenting way Jorge tried to get to me.

“And you think a dark parking garage is probably not the place you want to try to figure them out?”

“The lawn, either,” he said.

He walked toward the monitors and then pointed at the one in the lower left. It was true that the things that gathered in front of the garage thinned, but what I saw on that monitor froze me in place.

There were dozens, thirty to fifty of those things, just meandering in front of the courthouse.

“So we can’t get to my car, and we can’t get to yours. Which means?” I said, turning my eyes to him, hoping he wasn’t going to say what I knew he would.

“Which means we’re on foot,” he said.

I snorted. “Fucking fantastic.”

But the pathetic attempt at a joke died in my throat when Jack locked his gaze on mine.

“Are you going to slow me down, Counselor?”

His voice was rough, threaded with menace that slid right under my skin.

I tried to laugh it off but sounded timid, even to my own ears. “I hope not.”

He didn’t even blink. “Not good enough. Try again.”

My pulse lurched, and I rolled my eyes, knowing I was stalling but needing a second. I looked at him again. His gaze hadn’t wavered. “You’re actually serious?”

He thinned his lips, and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the way they’d felt against my skin.

I locked my gaze on his.

He still didn’t relent. “Say it.”