Chapter 28

My head jerked up, and I stared at Torin over the bar's countertop. Not fucking again! If this shit kept up, he was going to need to be wrapped in bubble wrap for his own damn protection. Lord help the man!

With a shake of my head, I ran around the counter, heading towards Torin; at least he was walking this time, which was a plus.

As I neared, he looked in my direction. Then, holding up his hand, he assured me, "I'm alright, Marl."

"You don't look alright!" I argued. "There is blood—"

Before I could finish, Torin shook his head. "It's not mine, Marlowe."

I gaped at him. "Then who the hell's is it?" I exclaimed..

Torin just shrugged, then asked, "Does it matter? It's not mine, that's all you need to know."

~TORIN~

I'd hope to make it to my room and change clothes before Marlowe saw me. Yeah, so didn't happen. Now, she gazed at me, her eyes curious. I was making things worse with my evasive answers, and I knew it, but she didn't need to know what had gone down.

I'd set out gunning for Dillon. But instead of finding that slimeball, I'd found another. One that had involved my past, my childhood: Francisco Torintino Dinelli, my dad's youngest brother, and the younger me's namesake, had just found his final resting place alongside the younger me I had buried long ago.

I'd felt no remorse as the first shovelful of dirt had covered my uncle's face. Not the second or third, either, and when the hole in the ground no longer showed the body that lay within, I had walked away without ever looking back.

The only thing I regretted, was the fact it had been too damn easy to take the bastard's life. He had never seen me coming. But I had made sure he knew who I was, and that it was the image of my face he'd taken to Hell with him.

~BURDOCK~

I'd never questioned Torin of his past. Never put my nose in where it didn't belong, it would have been bitten off if I had tried. Some things we're better left for a man to deal with alone.

Demons followed Torin that I could only guess at, but I knew a day would arrive that he could no longer keep them contained. The demons he carried would dance around him; sins of the past, they never let a person go. They latched on, sunk their teeth in and sucked you dry. I should know, I had my own I danced with.

**~MARLOWE

Fuck all the damn secrets. I was sick to my stomach with it all. Alice's fucking rabbit hole had become a den of snakes: slithering and hissing, all ready to strike, venomous to the core.

Something was in the air, vile and putrid. Whatever it was, it carried an upheaval with the impact of a nuclear weapon, and it was preparing to detonate.

Restlessness poured out of me, my skin crawled, making me want to shuck it like a spider did its outer hull. All around me life at the compound carried on, but I felt death awaited at its door. What's that old saying from Macbeth? Something wicked this way comes? Yeah, something wicked was definitely approaching.

Shoving the chair back I sat in, I picked the plate of barely touched spaghetti off the table and carried it to the kitchen, dumping the plate's contents into the trash. Afterward, I made my way to my room. Grabbing the book Tonya had loaned me, I quickly exited the room and made my way out into the sunshine.

Once again claiming my tree, I stretched my legs out before me, wiggling my feet a little, as laying the book in my lap, I opened its pages. As I stared at the black printed text, my mind wandered.

Shortly after Torin had basically told me to mind my own business, he'd made his way into the bomb shelter and I hadn't seen anything of him since. Rook had tried to strike up a conversation a few times, but those had quickly flat-lined. Ginger had been a bit absent-minded today, so I'd let her be, allowing her to tend the bar. Tonya, I had no idea of where she was, but I had little doubt she was floating around here somewhere. As for everyone else…they were doing their own thing.

Boredom was my enemy right now, and I had it in spades. I guess one could call what I had right now, the summer blues. I needed a hobby. Something to keep me occupied, but the compound was set up to be less than women-friendly, it was a man's world.

What, I wondered, did the other women here do to occupy their time? Had we regressed to the olden days when the female gender did needlepoint to fill in the hours?

I considered it for a moment then shook my head. So not me. It was at this point I realized how little educated I was on entertaining myself. Sure, I was raised in an MC lifestyle, but I had been kept busy working or dancing. Now, I was clueless of how to fill my time.

With a sigh, I focused on the words on the page, beginning to read about a young woman in love with a vampire.