Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 54 - RED-HANDED

The closer I got to my room, the emptier the corridors became. Everyone was evacuating the building, and I got more than a few strange looks for walking against the flow. The fire alarm was still going off - and it was loud enough to make my entire head throb. By the time I reached our room, my nerves were in tatters.

And Liam wasn't there. He'd been trying to link me since the alarm had first gone off, but I'd been steadily blocking him. One touch of my mind, and he'd know something was badly wrong. I didn't want him to find out like that. I didn't want him to find out at all, if I was being honest.

I went straight to the bathroom and turned the tap on. There wasn't much time. I didn't want to be the last one out of the building. It was attention I could do without. I rubbed at my bloodied hands mercilessly, but it had started to dry, and it was taking too long to wash off.

Most of the blood was mine. The little cuts and grazes were just beginning to heal over. But some of it, further up my wrists, probably belonged to Mason. I dealt with that first. The sight of it was making me feel sick again.

The door to the room opened and closed again in quick succession.

"Eva?" Liam called. He sounded worried. I didn't blame him.

"In here," I said, surprised at how normal I sounded. "I'll just be a minute."

I could hear his footsteps coming closer. I hadn't thought to lock the door behind me, and a shadow fell across the sink as he moved into the doorway. "We don't have a minute. That's the fire alarm, not the siren. Micah left the party really fast, so I don't think it's a drill. We need to get out of here."

I didn't reply. There was still a crust of red under my nails and in the creases of my palms. It wasn't coming off, no matter what I did. Liam saw it quickly enough and saw what I was doing. He went quiet. I didn't have to look at him to know that he was at a loss - I could feel it in the silence and the tension in the air between us. He didn't understand how there could be blood on my hands. As far as he was concerned, I'd been sleeping off a drunken stupor.

I felt a hand on my waist, and then he was beside me. He caught my wrists, putting a stop to the frantic scrubbing, and he held them still. Gentle but firm. I had no choice but to look at him.

"What happened, Eva?" Liam asked, ever-so-softly, and I wanted to burst into tears.

How was I supposed to tell him? I'd lied to him, and I'd snuck away, and I'd murdered his brother while he slept. I had no idea how he was going to react. There was a very real chance that he'd be angry.

The longer I stood there, frozen in place, gazing at him with fear in my eyes, the more worried Liam got. He reached out and brushed a few raindrops from my cheek. I wondered if he thought they were tears.

"Are you hurt?" he asked me.

I shook my head.

The tap was still on, and the sink was starting to overflow. Liam reached out to turn it off. "Okay, then we need to get outside. Can you walk with me?"

I shook my head again. Stayed where I was. "You don't understand. I did something."

Liam's forehead creased, and I saw him glance towards the corridor, as if it was occurring to him for the first time that I might be the cause of all this chaos and not a victim of it.

"What did you do, Eva?" he asked. There was the vaguest hint of caution in his voice now, but it was still so gentle. I didn't deserve it.

"I killed someone."

He hadn't been expecting that. For a while, he just stared at me. I couldn't for the life of me tell what he was thinking. The link wasn't giving me any clues, blocked off as it was, and his face was unreadable.