Free Vicious by Olivia Rivard Page A

wrong, Grant?”
    “What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Did last night really happen?”
    “Yes,” she said with no inflection in her voice.
    “You, you are real?”
    “Yes.”
    She gave me a look like she thought I might be simple.
    “Then how can you ask me what’s wrong? It should be obvious. I almost get killed by some crazed animal chick, and then you drag me back to some weird hotel half dead. I couldn’t tell if you were going to finish me off or not.”
    “Well, did I?”
    “Did you what?”
    “Finish you off?”
    Her nonchalant way of asking things never ceased to throw me for a loop. I looked her over for a minute.
    “Well, no.”
    “Then how about you give me the benefit of the doubt today?”
    I thought about it for a moment and realized she was right. If last night had happened the way I remembered it, then she had saved my life. Now she was trying to feed me breakfast and check my bandage. I softened my demeanor.
    “Okay, I’m sorry. Just please tell me what’s going on.”
    She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she stood up and began pacing the room a little. The anxious movement made me jumpy.
    “What do you do for a living?” she asked out of the blue with nothing but innocence in her voice.
    “What?”
    “Just tell me.”
    “What does that have to do with any of this?”
    “Just answer,” she said, obviously not going to relent in her odd questioning.
    “I’m a college student at LSU.”
    She stopped and looked at me cautiously.
    “And what do you study?”
    “Writing and literature mainly. I’m a journalism major.”
    She made a groaning noise and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers.
    “You’re a writer? A writer?”
    “Well, I hope to be someday.”
    “Oh, Jesus.”
    “What?”
    “I can’t tell you anything.”
    “Why? I want to know what the hell happened to me last night.”
    “I can’t tell you because you will go write about it. You will not just tell everyone, you will write it so the whole world can read it.”
    “What?”
    “I have to go.”
    “Wait, Anna!”
    I reached for her, but she gracefully dodged my grasp as she headed for the door. The evasive gesture was just like how Lea had moved when she’d dodged people at the bar.
    “Make sure you eat that food. You need it to help your strength.”
    “Anna, please don’t go. Tell me what happened. I have the right to know.”
    “The room is paid for, so there is no need to check out. Just be gone by noon.”
    She already had the door open and was walking out of it when a thought occurred to me. I couldn’t tell you why I said it or thought it. It was incredibly stupid to taunt a creature like Anna, but the words spilled out of my mouth before I could even complete the sentence in my own head.
    “I will go and tell everyone what happened if you don’t come back in here and explain your side to me.”
    This did make her stop, and she walked back into the room, eyeing me suspiciously now. This did not please her. I could see that. It probably hadn’t been the best move after seeing firsthand how she had handled herself physically the night before, but I had this strange urge to keep her close to me and to get some answers.
    “Are you threatening me?”
    She was standing now at the foot of the bed with her arms crossed over her chest looking very angry, and I began to get scared.
    “Look, Anna, I want to understand what happened. I’m sorry about the threat. I just want to know what happened to me. I won’t breathe or write a word of it if you will explain this all to me.”
    She took a deep breath and released her hands. She seemed to calm a little, but I began chewing on a croissant quietly, hoping it might please her to see me eat the food that she had brought.
    “I can’t tell you everything.”
    “Whatever you can will be helpful.”
    “And if you do ever go public with this, I will deny everything, and you will look like a loon.”
    “Understood. I wouldn’t believe me