Her stare was utterly vacant.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen a person sleepwalk, but it’s an eerie sight. Like watching a ghost go through the routine of the last moments of their life, completely unaware of everything around them.
But somehow that eeriness fit her.
Adeline was ethereal, transparent. At least to me.
She’d climbed out of bed and left her bedroom, and I circled the house to find her again in the kitchen. She walked up to a set of French doors with gauzy white curtains pulled to the sides, her eyes open and unseeing, her forehead pressing softly against the glass.
I knew she wasn’t aware, so I’d risked stepping up.
Her palm splayed over the glass, her fingers curling as if she were trying to hold on to something. And I’d pressed my gloved hand to hers, so close to touching, but still separated by glass. I’d stared at her face like she was looking at me. I’d pretended that we could know each other. Our breath fogged the only barrier between us.
I studied everything about her face, the crystal depth of her blue eyes, like a hidden oasis with only dappled sunlight. The soft curve of her jaw. The sharp blades of her high cheekbones. The blood red tint of lips that were swollen as if she’d been chewing them.
She does that when she thinks, chews her lips. And why do I have to fucking know that? I don’t want to know that.
That was when curiosity turned to obsession. And realizing that, I’d forced myself away from her to return to the shadows.
She sank to the ground as soon as I stepped away, her expression twisting in such raw, honest grief that my breath caught, my hand fisted.
I don’t like it when Adeline is still.
It’s why I’m in a rush to get her out of the club, why I storm down the dark service hall to kick open a back door into the alleyway. Why I carry her to my car because I can’t put her in the back of a stranger’s vehicle in the condition she’s in.
It would be too easy for someone to take advantage, and I’m not even sure she can tell the driver her address. I could, but that’s beside the point.
The girl is so far gone, it isn’t like she’ll remember anything. I’ve just never pulled my car into her fucking driveway before. I was always careful to park around the block and walk over.
This is too close.
But I do it regardless.
Thankfully, Adeline sleeps the entire way home, her tiny body curled up in the passenger seat, the seatbelt I’d strapped over her absolutely useless if I get in a wreck. Not that I will. I’m an excellent driver. You have to be to flee murder scenes without being caught.
She is safe.
From the world, at least.
For tonight.
I’m not so sure the same can be said about me.
I pull into her driveway just as she is stirring from that aggravatingly still sleep, her eyes blinking open, hazy from blacking out.
Killing the engine, I pull my seatbelt from the buckle and lean over to remove hers. Her breath is hot against my forearm, her body stirring again as she opens her eyes more.
“Where am I?”
Teeth clenched, I think about opening the door, rolling her out with my foot and backing away. It’s what I should do. But I answer her instead.
“You’re home.”
Her lips pull into a sloppy smile, her hips shifting over the seat so she can roll her head to look at me.
“Who are you?”
“Does it matter?” I cock a brow, challenging her to care.
She laughs, and it’s like music, free and unencumbered.
“No, I guess it doesn’t.”
We stare at each other for several quiet seconds, the beat of my breath matching hers. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused, her face so serene that I feel relaxed because of it.
“You’re pretty,” she says on an exhalation of breath.
Pretty?
Flowers are pretty. The sky is pretty. Women are pretty.
I am none of those things.
“You’re drunk, and I’m not pretty.”
Adeline pushes up to kneel in her seat and leans over the center console, her palm cupping my cheek as tender as a lover.
“Yes, you are. But you’re flawed. I can see all the mistakes. You’re gorgeous because of those flaws.”
My eyes widen, heart hammering. She needs to go. This is too much. Too close. How the fuck does she know that?
It’s the tragic artist in her. She looks for the cracks and fissures, the imperfections in anything she sees.
Her sloppy