Pike (The Pawn Duet #1) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,50

process how someone could target innocent kids looking to have a good time, regardless of the reason behind it.

“What?” Pike asks, slapping his hands down on the counter.

I jump. “It would be lethal.”

Pike picks up the glass.

“What are you doing?” I ask, curiously.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, Pike takes the entire glass in his hand and looks at the color as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing. Then, with an angry roar he throws the glass over my head and it shatters against the cabinets. I crouch down behind the cabinet, a failed attempt to hide from his wrath.

“Go to sleep,” he orders.

“You…you’re not?” I ask, not knowing how to finish my sentence because I don’t really know what I’m asking. You’re not going to murder me right now? Seemed too much like a reminder to keep him on task.

He balls up his fists. His chest is heaving. He leans his head against the wall and punches it with his fist. “Not tonight. Tonight, I have other shit I’ve got to deal with.”

I feel a strong need to comfort him, which is strange under the circumstances.

“Go to bed,” he orders again. He steps outside of the room. The locks click in place. I hear him talking on the phone, his voice fading as he moves down the stairs.

Bed? How can I sleep now? After all that’s happened? But the thought of how much I can’t sleep or just sleep at all makes me yawn, and I realize that I’m tired. Mentally. Physically.

My mind goes back to the kiss.

Emotionally.

I pad over to the bed and pull the covers back, plopping in with zero grace. I lift the blanket over my chest. Sleep doesn’t come. I lay there for hours running every scenario I can think of regarding where we go from here. None of them ends with me making it through this alive except alien invasion where the aliens accidentally drop me from their laser beam pulling me into their ship and I fall into a soft pile of hay.

The lock clicks open and the door shuts softly and clicks back into place. I hear Pike thud over to the bed and kick off his boots, tossing his shirt to the floor, followed by the unmistakable sound of his belt and then his jeans hitting the floor before.

I feel the dipping of the mattress beside me.

“You’re going to sleep here?” I whisper, pulling the blanket tighter over my chest.

“Do you see another bed?” he asks.

“No,” I say.

“Go to sleep, Mic. There’ll be plenty of time to argue and want to kill each other tomorrow. Tonight, you did something good. The bad shit that comes along with it will still be here to worry about when the suns up.”

“What did I do that was good, again?” I ask, needing to know what he’s referring to.

He sighs. “You pointed out that the packages had been tampered with, and that there was enough fentanyl in those pills that it would have killed the stupid kids who take it.” I feel the tension in his body from across the bed. “My question is why? Why tell me at all? Why not just let it happen?”

“That wasn’t something good. I just don’t want innocent people to die,” I say simply. “I don’t want anyone to die.”

“But, why go against your own people? They’re plans?”

Now it’s my turn to sigh. “I can only tell you that every decision I make is for no one but myself and my own conscience, and I’m honestly sorry that this is hurting you.” My chest tightens.

“What game are you playing at, Mic?” he asks, calmly. Too calm.

I chuckle. “Playing insinuates that I might lose. I’m not playing at any game because losing isn’t an option.”

“You don’t belong in that world,” he says, sounding every bit sincere. “Or this one. You just don’t.”

“No, I don’t,” I admit, and it’s the truth. I don’t belong in that world.

But when all of this is over, that world will belong to me.

Chapter Eighteen

Pike

The meeting with King and Nine had been brutal. Although, King now understands that I’m not trying to cut him out by pretending to steal my own shipment that he funded. The worst part is, Nine vouched for me. If King continued to believe that I wasn’t to be trusted, ultimately, it would be Nine who could pay. I can’t have that happening to my friend, certainly not because of me.

But it’s not going to happen. Because of her.

I stare down at Mickey,