My blouse is mostly undone, so I close as many of the remaining buttons as there are; the top two are missing.
He’s looking like he’s leaning back against the wall, one knee cocked, his forearm leaned on it, but there’s a space between him and that wall.
“Come here,” Jase commands with a scratchy voice.
I rush over, feeling slightly lightheaded.
“Are you okay?” I get too close and find I can’t move any closer; it’s like I’m up against a window, so I press my hand against it, testing… and it feels like a hard surface, so I back up a little.
“Am I okay?” he parrots, voice sounding a little sinister.
I swallow instead of answering.
“I’m just fuckin’ peachy. Bailey. What do you think?” he asks, voice dripping with sarcasm.
I back up about five more feet away, like the animosity is a repellant.
And it is. Because an attitude is the last thing I need from him. And maybe also the thing I need the most. Because it’s a reminder of where we are in our acquaintance and why I’m here. I grind my teeth to avoid snapping back at him. Because that won’t do us much good right now.
“Sit down,” he says. “Against this wall. I want to be able to at least block you when they come back down here.”
Sighing, I sit, putting my back against the plastic-covered wall.
“Really wishin’ you didn’t give that shit to me,” he mutters and bangs his head back in a frustrated way that I suspect would hurt if it actually met the wall.
And I feel my face get hot. “I tried to get away to get some help. I didn’t want her to hurt you again.”
“So, let me guess... you only had one of whatever Meadows had? Because there’s not another one in my pocket to turn this off.”
I stick my fingers into my shirt to feel around and am relieved the package is still there inside my bra.
“Would taking another one turn it off?”
Jase growls and I startle.
“There are two more in there.” I say, leaving them where they are. “But I…” I let that hang.
He’s shaking his head, seething with anger. “And you didn’t think to stuff ‘em back into my pocket? So maybe I could take one to turn this fuckin’ thing off?”
I blink a couple of times. “I didn’t.”
“Obviously fucking not. Also obviously never bothered to kick all the toxic flowers away before you fed it to me.”
My mouth opens and closes a couple times as I’m processing how pissed off he is at me. Like all of this is entirely my fault.
“I… I had no time to think. They were coming and I didn’t want to get trapped in a bubble with you by being too close, if that’s what would’ve happened. I don’t know. I just–”
“Are you telling me you didn’t think to ask what the fuck it would and wouldn’t do before you dosed me while I was unconscious?”
“How would I do that?”
“I don’t know Bay…” he says with a sneer, “maybe by asking the Starling witch who made these fuckin’ things and happens to be staying in the building attached to the place you spend forty or fifty hours a week?”
I gulp down a sharp swallow. “Nobody knew I took them. I found them on the floor when things went crazy in the town hall and put them in my pocket. I kind of forgot. Until I heard you might be in danger and then I figured I could bring them to you.”
“And you didn’t ask for advice on how to use them?”
I bite my lip.