When Gracie Met The Grump

by Mariana Zapata

I didn’t sleep that great, tossing and turning and having one crappy dream after another that I couldn’t recall anymore. So when I’d woken up with a funny stomach, I didn’t let myself think too much about it. Yesterday had been pretty weird after all, and I’d decided that today was going to be the day I finally picked a place to move.

“Good morning.” Those purple eyes flicked over to me for a moment before going back to my tablet, which he’d plugged in at some point. Good morning to me too.

He didn’t even bother glancing my way as he answered, his voice flat and either bored or irritated, probably both. “I haven’t slept.” I eyed him. He’d stayed up all night?

“Who were you on the phone with yesterday?” he demanded. There was no way I could have hidden the surprised expression that took over my features. He knew I’d been on the phone, but he hadn’t heard through the receiver?

This shit was getting old real fast. What the hell must I have done in another lifetime to deserve it?

I was sad.” He’d made me sad.

“Call logs can be deleted,” Paranoid Pants tried to claim.

“Why would I give you away?” He was dead-ass serious as he said, “For money.” I couldn’t help it anymore, I rolled my eyes right then and there, then glared at his perfect, annoying face.

I thought maybe you’re just crabby because you’re in pain, but I don’t really think that anymore. You’re always grouchy. Or for some reason, it’s just me you can’t stand. I can’t tell.”

The Defender’s eyebrows flicked up just a little. Such a small, small amount that I doubted he even realized he did it. But I’d been staring at his sleeping face for days, and I could see the subtle change.

“Look, I’m trying real hard to be nice here.” It was a small one, but his snicker made me blink. Made me want to do a lot more than that, mostly including my hands and his neck, but I was going to let it go.

Anyway, you could probably hear me if I lied. I’m not a trained CIA agent; I can’t control my pulse. You make me nervous, but it’s because I know what I have living in my house. I don’t want to be found by certain people, and that has nothing to do with you. I didn’t give you away or invite anyone over. I don’t know who is here, but I’ll go out there and find out. Stay here and eavesdrop. You have my permission to use my body as a human shield if I’m gone. I won’t care.”

My stomach cramped, hard. Nausea punched a path straight up my throat, so violent I almost stumbled. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. No. The hair on my arms rose, and so did every single other fine hair on my body. I shivered out in the morning sun, and I knew. I knew. I turned, and I fucking ran.

And it was then, immediately right fucking then, three long strides in, that I saw that The Defender had followed me out. He was standing at the open doorway, one hand on each side of the railing, his body stooped. His nose in the air.

“Run!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Go!” I shouted like a fucking banshee. “Don’t let them get you!” I screamed, my voice cracking in panic and worry and desperation. Please, please, please, let him get away, I thought as I ran ...

Why hadn’t he run? How the hell had they taken him down? Had they shot him too? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw feet. One pair of black boots after another surrounded me, coming so close I thought for sure I was going to get stepped on if I could care about anything other than The Defender. They couldn’t take him.

My ears throbbed harder, and I slapped a palm over the one aching the worst, but I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even see The Defender anymore, but I hoped more than anything he had managed to get away. He could, I knew he could. Lifting my gaze, I realized I was in the middle of what had to be… twenty… thirty men dressed in paramilitary-type outfits, holding guns all aimed at me.

I couldn’t let them hurt him. How had they found me? I’d been so careful.

“He has nothing to do with this,” I tried to say. “Leave him alone.” I tasted even more blood. Why did my teeth hurt? “Let him go. I won’t fight you. Please. I’ll go with you.” I would. I’d go with them. Promise. Everything hurt, everything hurt. But I had to… I had to…

Sheer fear wrapped me up entirely at not knowing what was going on. At failing him. Failing myself. My grandparents.

It was the pounding in my head that woke me up. Or maybe the fact that the pain coming from my back was almost unbearable. The terrible taste in my mouth might have also been a factor. More than likely, it was all of it.

I felt like I had gotten my ass whooped, and it had been a long, long time since that had happened. Back then too, it had been a bunch of people ganging up on me, except in this case it wasn’t just because I was the new kid. I wished it was that simple.

The shots. The men who looked like soldiers but weren’t, at least not the good kind of soldiers. The Defender sprawled on the ground in front of my trailer. I sat up so fast my head swam, and I had to squeeze my eyes closed when everything went white.

Holy fuck, my back. My fucking everything. Oww, oww, oww. Blindly reaching backward to try and touch it, I stopped at the weight on my wrist and forced myself to look. There was a band on my hand. One single, thick, heavy cuff. Where the fuck was I?

A steady, ultra-slow beat pulsed against my fingers, and I let out a relieved breath. He was alive. He better fucking be.

I was alive, and he was alive, and those were both good things, I tried to reason.

A fucked one, that was what. Totally and completely fucked.

There was only one thing my body wanted to do, and it didn’t include calming breaths. “Oh no, no—”

“Get yourself together,” he rumbled in that rich, low voice, stretching his arms out across the floor, giving me a view of the cuff on his wrist too. That grumpy face stared over at me, annoyed, impassive, and dirt-smudged. But not actually seeming at all pissed off that we were in a fucking room in God knew where after pretty much getting ambushed. I wanted to cry.

“Do not get… hysterical. I’m not… in the mood,” The Defender grumbled. I blinked. He wasn’t in the mood? Him?

“Are you shitting me right now?” He yawned. Yawned!

“I thought they hurt you!” I hissed, sounding 1000 percent panicked. Because I was. I was scared on top of this. I was so, so scared. “They used… beanbag rounds,” he explained like he was telling me about the weather. Like we were on the couch at my trailer and not… not here.

I stared at him. I stared at him in disbelief. In terror. “They didn’t… hurt me,” he said, sounding almost dismissive even as his eyes narrowed. “You’re the one who got hurt. Probably have… bruised ribs.”

I’d tried to live my life quietly. So small. Don’t draw attention. Don’t become too attached to anything. I had kept away from people for not just my own benefit but for theirs too. I tried to be decent. I believed in karma. But I was still here. Because I had been a stubborn motherfucker trying to do her best. I’d ignored the signs like an idiot.

“And you’re okay with that?” Because I wasn’t. This was my nightmare. He huffed. “It’s not convenient.” Convenience was a really loose word to describe this.

“Are you not losing your shit because you know something I don’t?” “I know… a lot of things… you don’t” was how he decided to reply, the ball of sunshine.

He still looked almost serene. But some tiny muscle in his cheek moved, and I could tell he thought about how to answer that. I’d known he was full of shit telling me he didn’t know where we were. “I’ve got… a good idea.” I knew it!

The Defender’s gaze narrowed and then, in Korean, he replied, “I wasn’t… sleeping when they… brought us here.”

“You let them take you?” I had told him to leave. I knew I had. I’d fucking screamed it at the top of my lungs.

His purple eyes flashed for a brief moment before the bright color faded just as quickly as I’d seen it. I’d surprised him, and he’d surprised me by talking to me in flawless Korean right back. “I did not let them… take me. I would not have been… in a position… to be taken if I’d been… healing the way I should’ve. The only reason… you’re here is because you kept this a secret.”

Calm down.

I had to calm down.

“I thought something was off. I told you to go. Before I went outside, I warned you.” The stare he pinned me with was incredulous. I knew in my heart this wasn’t his fault. None of this was.

“I’m sorry, okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t know they were coming, and….” What was I supposed to do? Tell him everything? What a fucking mess. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone anything, ever. I wasn’t supposed to even be here. I wanted to cry, and I could hear that urge in my voice as I murmured, “I told them to leave you alone.”

I was going to spend the rest of my short fucking life in this room with this man-being who had it out for me for reasons I couldn’t understand.

Tears sprang up in my eyes, and my heart started going even faster, and when I tried to breathe, it was hard as hell to because I was panting despite how much it made my back ache.

I was going to die in this place. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have their money. That I had never done shit. They wouldn’t believe me.

Everything had been fo...

“Are you crying?” the rich voice scoffed in disbelief. Oh, my tears were there. They were fucking there.

I was so stupid. So fucking stupid.