“Both of us.” I clear my throat and chance a look up at him as I add, “I mean I wish we were both birds.” I turn to gesture toward the far wall as I explain, “So we could fly through that window.”
The boy smiles at me, although I don’t think it’s genuine. “But it’s closed,” he says in a voice so rough and low it makes goosebumps spread across my skin. He clears his own throat, propping up his head in his hand and leaning on his elbow to look down at me. My heart does a weird flip in my chest, fluttering when he leans closer to me. I can feel the heat of his body. He’s older than me. He looks it, too. I feel my cheeks heat with a blush and I look away, turning back to the window and pulling at the thin gown I have on. It’s not enough to keep me warm down here and I know if I were just a bit closer to the boy, I’d be more comfortable, but I keep my distance.
“Well, what animal then?” I ask the boy, curling on my side and tucking both arms beneath my head.
He’s quiet for a moment, but then he answers, “A wolf could break it.”
I resist the urge to turn to face him, closing my eyes as they roll and a small smile forms on my lips. A wolf could never fit through that window.
I decide to play along, feeling a warmth run through me as I hear him scoot closer to me. He never touches me, but he likes to be close to me. And I like it too although I don’t tell him. “Well, you be a wolf and break the window, and I’ll be a bird. Together we can run away.”
“I saw a wolf kill a bird once on TV,” he says, but the boy’s voice is devoid of emotion and the shock of what he said makes me turn to face him, sitting up and pulling my knees into my chest.
“Why would a wolf do that?” I feel my brows pinch and my lips turn down; I know it’s obvious I’m horrified from what he said, and it only makes him laugh.
He shrugs his shoulders and picks at a spot on the concrete floor, a satisfied smirk on his lips. Something about the look on his face makes my heart do that fluttering motion again and I find myself inching forward, my toes barely touching his thigh. But we both notice that they touch.
“A wolf doesn’t have any reason to hurt a bird.” I stare at him, but he still doesn’t look up at me. “I don’t understand.”
The boy tilts his head to look at me and this time, the expression is something I’ve never seen before. There’s a rawness in the light gray flecks, a heat on the outer edge where his eyes get darker. Almost like a flicker of a flame giving his gaze an intensity that makes my body freeze, but not with a coldness, with a burning heat.
“I think he did it,” the boy starts to say, licking his lower lip and staring right through me, not caring that I can’t even breathe when he looks at me like that, “I think he did it just because he wanted to.”
Thank you for reading Something to Remember, the free prequel to the standalone dark romance novel, Forget Me Not.