Page 25 of Death

I slip on my jacket and Ari opens the door.

“I’ll have her home at a decent hour,” he says.

They smile and nod. Dad wraps an arm around Mom’s shoulders and they admire me like some kind of princess. I hate it. I hate every second of this.

Doesn’t this bother them?

This man is a damn stranger and they’re grinning like idiots?

Fucking help me.

“Tannis.” Ari pauses by the open door and gestures outside. “After you.”

I swallow hard, giving my parents one last begging glance but they do nothing.

I’m on my own.

I walk out onto the porch and Ari follows behind me. He closes the door and pauses, letting out a stiff breath as his lips curl.

“Well, that was awkward,” he says.

My eyes roll as I plunk down the porch steps.

“Oh, come on, Tannis,” he says with a chuckle. “This night will be very, very long if you don’t lighten up.”

I continue toward the black car. “Sorry if I don’t find forced servitude as amusing as you all do.”

“You think you’re a slave?”

“I know I am.”

An ice-cold hand grips my arm. I shudder from the chill as Ari turns me around with fire in his eyes.

“Believe me, Tannis,” he says. “If you were a slave, I would have silenced you long before now.”

I narrow my eyes. “Is that a threat?” I ask, standing up tall.

His lips twitch. “I didn’t mean for it to be but it did come off that way, didn’t it?”

I scoff and easily slip free from his light grip.

“Laugh,Tannis!” he says. “Please. Just once.”

I yank the back door handle but it doesn’t open. “No,” I say, reaching for it again. Still, the door won’t budge. “The deal was for dates. Not smiles. Or laughs. Or even conversat—” I grunt with frustration. “Why the hell won’t this door open?”

Ari takes the handle and easily pops the door open. I glare at him and he smiles as he holds it for me.

“My security system is very good,” he says.

I bite down hard and lower myself into the backseat. I slide all the way until my shoulder presses against the opposite door. Once again, the driver’s seat is empty but the engine turns as Ari sits down beside me and closes the door.

I sit back as we reverse out of the driveway and take off down the street. My neighborhood rushes by and I feel a dark dread growing inside. The place I grew up. The setting of every late-night walk and memories of trick-or-treating. I’ve always taken it for granted until now. I wish I realized before how much it means to me.

I glance at Ari to find him scanning the streets as well. He’s had front row seats to my life for twenty years but I know nothing about him except that he’s a god.

What does that even mean?

“What do you do?” I ask him.