Page 36 of On Edge

He reaches for me.

“Isaid. I don’t need your help.”

Severin looks down at me with hooded eyes, obviously not impressed, but there’s a faint curl to his lips that’s completely unexpected. He’s laughing at me. “Got it. And you’re not getting on the boat, I take it?”

“No.”

“What if I pick you up, carry you there, and dump you on it?”

“I’ll…I’ll scream.”

“I like screaming.”

“I’ll cry.”

His eyes darken, and his brow furrows. There…that shut him up.

To my chagrin, he folds his arms and just stands there, watching while I struggle to my feet. Finally, I manage it, alone. But he doesn’t touch me again.

I’m so angry that I tramp back the way I came, wondering when exactly he’s going to pick me up and take me to the boat.

He doesn’t. But I feel his eyes on me the whole time, setting every nerve in my body alight as I pick my way through the bracken and cling to the wet stone like a limpet where the footing isn’t great. He doesn’t offer to help any of those times either.

Good. I don’t want him to.

At the bottom of the lawn, I march off to the other side of the trees, away from Grayfleet. I don’t care where I end up. The last thing I want is to be trapped inside those suffocating walls with him. Right now, I’d like to be anywhere else, alone and out of sight of the house where he can’t watch me from its windows.

Thankfully, he doesn’t follow.

I end up in an old orchard. Storming through the gnarled trees, I kick at the rotten apples in the grass. At the foot of the largest tree, I rest against the bark and look around. Some of the branches still bear fruit, albeit pale yellow and bruised, but its trunk is wide enough to hide behind, just in time for hot tears to come. They stream down my cheeks before I can stop them.

Nothing like a good cry to scare the men away.

Why do I keep crying? And why do I keep running into that asshat at the worst times? What was he doing up there?

A chill creeps over my skin. Was he there to… no.

Surely not.

He couldn’t have been there to push me off? Could he?Maybe I should have let him. Perhaps then the police and my parents would finally listen, and Severin would be investigated.

But the memory of crumbling stone beneath my feet, of Troy Severin’s iron grip yanking me back from the edge, plays on repeat in my mind.

As much as I hate to admit it…he saved me.

So why washe up there, then?

Watching you,Nell cackles.

A while later,someone steps in front of me. I blink up to see their face through the sunlight. It’s Mrs. Oakley, holding what looks to be a flask.

“Here, I thought you might need this.”

Dusting my fingers over my damp cheeks, I wipe away the stray tears still clinging to my skin.

“What is it?”

“A flask of hot tea.”