Safe.
Nothing to worry about—except the glare in her eyes as she asks, “What do you think you’re doing? Why do you have the windslicer?”
Windslicer?
Awesome name.
I move to the shade of her tree, trying to cool off. Running in the heat is not the best idea. Good thing I put on extra deodorant.
“I was . . . trying to save you,” I admit, hating how cheesy it sounds. “I thought the Stormers were here.”
“You were trying to save me?”
“Hey, I heard crying. I thought the warriors were torturing you or something.”
Sheesh—ungrateful much?
She stares at me, her expression a little proud, but mostly sorry for me. Like a parent listening to their child’s plan to capture the closet monster. “If the Stormers were here, the sky would be inky black and the winds would be picking up these trees and tossing them around like matchsticks.”
“Oh, good. Something to look forward to.”
We both glance at the sky, like we need to double-check that there’s nothing there.
Not a cloud in sight. But her hawk dives at me again and I almost drop the windslicer as I flail to cover my head. “Seriously, call off your attack bird.”
“Go to your perch, Gavin,” she commands, and instantly the stupid creature obeys, screeching one last time as he flaps toward the house.
Freaking bird.
“Step back,” she warns, moving to the edge of the leaves.
She’s not going to jump, is sh—
My thought’s cut short as she spreads her arms and steps off the branch. She whispers something I can’t understand and a hot gust of wind rushes past me. The draft wraps around her, slows her descent, and sets her gently on the ground.
“Show-off,” I grumble.
She holds out her hand for the sword and I readily hand it over. Holding it makes me queasy. She inspects the blade, probably making sure I haven’t somehow damaged it in the five minutes I held it. “Why were you looking for me?”
“Why were you hiding up in a tree, crying?” I counter.
For a second she looks thrown. Then she says, “I needed the wind to restore me,” and cuts through the grove, heading back to her house.
I follow, waiting until she’s put the deadly weapon away and turned to face me before I press for an answer that isn’t a total load of crap. “Okay, that explains why you were in the tree. What about the crying?”
I stare her down, daring her to deny it.
“That’s none of your business.”
She tries to move past me but I block her path.
“You can trust me, you know,” I tell her, my voice a little heavier on the emotion than I mean it to be. “I know you’re used to doing everything on your own. But we’re in this together now.”
She doesn’t say anything. Just stares at the ground, like the ants scurrying across the dirt are the most fascinating things in the world.
I move closer and take her hands—thrilling to the strange zings that shoot through me the second we touch. “Let me help you.”
The air feels charged between us as she considers my offer, and for a second it looks like she might take me up on it. Then she shakes her head and slips her hands out of my grip. “I just had a bad dream. That’s all.”
“About what?”
She turns away. “About the day my father died.”
Her voice is barely a whisper, but the words hit me like a stone.
Her father died saving me.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her, hoping she knows how much I mean it.
She turns back, and when our eyes meet, I see a slight shift. Like a tiny piece of her iron guard just cracked. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I shrug, wondering if that’s really true. “Either way, I’m still sorry it happened.”
“Me too.”
She leans against the wall, into the tiny patch of shade it creates. From her pained expression I can tell she’s reliving every moment of the storm in perfect detail.
I want to crawl inside her head, watch the replay—even if it’ll hurt.
“What was it like?” I whisper.
“The storm?”
“Yeah. How did it all . . . go down?” I can’t think of a gentler way of saying it.
She stares at me like I’ve just massacred half a dozen kittens. “You want me to tell you the gruesome details of your parents’ murders?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I swipe my hands through my hair, trying to find the words to explain it. “For the last ten years of my life I’ve had hundreds of people ask me what happened—and do you know how they look at me when I say ‘I don’t know’? Like I’m brain damaged. ’Cause wouldn’t I have to be, to not remember the single most defining moment of my life?”
“You’re lucky you don’t remember.”
“Lucky?”
If I have to hear that one more time . . .
“So I’m lucky your mom stole my memories? Erased the first seven years of my life?”
“In some ways, yes.”
She doesn’t get it—nobody ever has.