“I’m fine,” I say for the millionth time, like a mantra, even though it’s a lie. “I’m fine.”
He ignores me. He’s receded into a place I can’t reach. A place where words are meaningless and touch is all that matters. All that’s real.
My hands move to cup his cheeks, feeling stubble and sharp angles beneath my stained fingertips.
“Nate…” I whisper, wishing he’d look at me. “I’m okay. I’m alive. Bruises will fade, cuts will heal. But right now, we really need to go because I don’t know if they’re going to come back, or if—”
“I’m going to kill him.”
His words are muffled but that doesn’t dilute their ferocity in the slightest.
Okay. He’s speaking. That’s progress, right?
Yes, the things he’s saying are really freaking scary, but…
“Nate, really—”
“He’s a fucking dead man.”
Hooooooooly shit.
My heart pounds at the total calm in his tone. He’s not bluffing or exaggerating. He’s deadly serious.
This man could kill with his bare hands, without flinching.
And it doesn’t change how I feel about him in the slightest.
What does it say about me?
I swallow hard and push the thoughts away.
“We have to go, love,” I whisper, voice cracking on the endearment I didn’t mean to let slip out.
He flinches when it hits him. Like I’ve struck him.
I sigh. “Nate.”
He’s a statue at my feet.
“I told you I was fine, but that’s not exactly true,” I say, needing to get him to focus.
It works. He goes totally tense again, arms turning to steel around me. His face pulls back and tilts up, so his eyes are on mine for the first time in minutes. I stifle a gasp at the ghosts swimming in his gaze.
He’s not pretty — he’s haunted, Lila’s voice whispers in my head.
She was right.
His eyes are a black hole — infinite, bottomless, and teeming with darkness.
“You’re not fine,” he repeats finally, his voice low, thick with emotion.
I shake my head. “See, I have to pee. I’m thirsty. I could really use a shower. And I also have to check on Boo, because I’m worried no one has taken him for walkies or fed him the entire time I was kidnapped, and he’s probably pooped on my new Anthropologie rug. Which would suck, because they have a really strict return policy, and—”
“You’re fine,” he says, some life coming back into his eyes – as though he’s witnessing a miracle firsthand.
“I’m fine,” I echo, trying to smile at him. The movement makes one of the splits in my lips reopen, and I feel a trickle of blood drip down my chin.
He’s on his feet, looming over me, before I’ve had a chance to blink. His eyes watch the trickle as his hand comes up to cup my face. I feel the swipe of his thumb against my chin as he wipes it clean. When he pulls his palm away, he stares at it for a long time — my blood on his hand.
“He’ll never touch you again.” The words hold a dark promise. “Never.”
I shiver. “Nate—”
His eyes lift to mine as he takes a careful step back from me, relinquishing his hold for the first time since he arrived.
“We should go.” His words are flat.
“We should,” I agree.
Neither of us moves. We stare at each other for a long moment, not knowing quite what to say or where to look or how to deal with the crushing memory of his arms around my waist and my hands in his hair still crowding out every other thought. I’d seen his ghosts swirling in his eyes; he’d heard mine in the cracking endearment on my lips. In that desperate, aching moment, with all the bullshit stripped away, we’d come together and crossed an irrefutable line of demarcation.
I worried there was no going back.
“You were wrong, you know,” I murmur after a while, because there’s nothing else to say.
His brows lift in question.
“I actually can run for my life in these heels.” My voice is smug. “Like a pro.”
His eyes crinkle a tiny bit at the corners and I know I’ve brought him back from whatever dark place he was stuck in.