Page 8 of Rastor

And now, Bishop was giving her grief, too? I yanked my gaze from Chloe and turned to face him. "Answer me!" I said.

He didn't. Instead, he opened the car door and slowly got out, shutting the door behind him. He tossed me the car-keys, and I caught them on instinct. Without a word, he turned toward the restaurant and started walking.

"Hey!" I called after him. "Where do you thinkyou'regoing?"

He didn't turn around, but his voice carried across the short distance. "To get a burger, beer – hell, a cab, I dunno. You guys work it out. I'll catch you later."

Next to me, Chloe hollered after him. "Hey! There's nothing to work out, dipshit!"

There was no reaction. But then again, I hadn't expected any. I turned to Chloe and felt a reluctant smile tug at my lips. "Did you just call him a dipshit?"

She whirled to face me. "You think it's funny?"

"Nope." I raised my hands, palms out. "Not me."

"Then why are you smiling?" she said. "God, you are such a–" She shook her head. "I don't even know what to call you."

I felt my smile fade. She didn't have to call me anything. I knew exactly what I was. A bastard. An asshole. A stupid dumb-shit who'd driven away the only girl I'd ever loved. I swallowed. And I'd hurt her.

I recalled the handcuffs, and what they'd done to her wrists. The sleeves of her jacket covered them now, but I knew what was underneath – red, raw skin where the cuffs had been.

She'd been tugging so damned hard. I should've known that was happening. I should've let her go. Or better yet, I should've never cuffed her in the first place.

What the hell was wrong with me?

And just few minutes ago, that other idiot had dropped her on the pavement. What the hell was wrong withhim?

Was Chloe hurt? I took a good long, look, starting at her face and working my way down. "You're okay?" My voice caught. "You look okay." I reached for her hand. "But what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be home?" I hesitated. "In bed or something?"

"Oh." She yanked her hand away. "Because some psycho locked me in his basement?" She gave a humorless laugh. "No big deal. Happens to me all the time. Life goes on, right?"

She was losing it, and I couldn’t blame her. This was all my fault. "Baby–"

"I already told you, don't call me that." She pointed toward the restaurant where she worked. "So why'd you do thishere? Youwantme to lose my job? Is that it?"

I shook my head. "No. I get it. You love this job. I know that."

"Oh yeah.That'swhy I'm working here." She rolled her eyes. "Because I love it soooo much."

If she didn't love it, that was news to me. "You don't?"

"Hell no," she said. "But I still don't want to get fired." She reached up to rub her temples. "I can only imagine what those two guys from the trunk are saying right about now." She closed her eyes like it hurt to think. "God, what a nightmare."

Obviously, she was hurting, and not just physically. My arms ached to hold her. My hands longed to stroke her face until her features relaxed into a sleepy smile. My whole body wanted to move forward, to shield her from everything in the world that was troubling her.

But she wouldn’t want that, because the main thing troubling her was me. So I kept my distance and offered up one small detail that might make her feel better. It was about the guys in the trunk. "They're not saying anything."

She opened her eyes to look at me. "What are you? Some kind of mind-reader? Admit it, you don't know squat."

"I know one thing. They won't talk."

"Why?" she said. "Because they're too afraid that I'll talk too? Yeah, like that's gonna happen."

I didn't get it. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I don't want to get dragged into some police station." Her voice rose. "I don't want to be sitting there all night, telling my pathetic story of how they tried to drag me into a car and…" She let the sentence trail off, as if unable to continue.

It hurt to see her like this. I kept my voice low, soothing. "Hey, don't worry. Nobody's dragging you anywhere. They won't talk. And you won't have to either."