Breakaway - Sadie Jacks Page 0,10

be put into the position to tell him what it could do to me. My heart started to trip in my chest. My skin misted with sweat.

“Calm down, Hollyn. It’s just bronze. It isn’t even magnetic. It just brings the water from the ground to the top floor of the building. It can’t hurt you.” He pushed my stiff body forward, inch by inch, until we were at the counter.

Above the counter and the faucets of death was a silvered picture. I sucked in a breath as Thane appeared in the picture. The person in front of him must be me.

I leaned forward, uncaring of his grunt. I’d only ever seen my reflection in the water of the fall. And the surface of water was never still. Nor ever so clear as this.

“You act like you’ve never seen your own face,” he said behind me.

I shook my head as I studied myself.

His dark eyes widened over my shoulder. “Where have you been living that you’ve never seen your own reflection in a mirror?”

My lip curled up in a snarl. “Doesn’t matter. I’m never going back there.” I braced my body for any move he might make.

He shook his head. “I’m not going to make you, Hollyn. I promise.” He laid his hand over his heart.

I relaxed and went back to staring at myself. The crusty blood that decorated my chin drew my attention from the wide, slightly purple eyes and dark purple hair. I rubbed at it. Watched it flake off my skin and down to the pristine white stone counter. The veins running through the stone soothed some ragged edge of my soul.

Thane reached around from behind me and pulled the length of dark metal of the faucet towards us. I flinched as I waited for the poison of the metal to leach into my skin. Suck the life from my very body.

Nothing happened but the gushing spray of crystal-clear water. I dipped my hands into the flow. Tears gathered in my eyes. “It’s warm.” I looked up into his face in the mirror.

He smiled, but the edges were tipped down at the corners. “Yeah, Stretch, it’s warm. It can get so hot it can hurt you, so make sure you’re careful, huh?”

I smiled. “I know what boiling water does. We did have to eat out in the forest.”

He gave a half-hearted chuckle. “Right. Of course you did. Well, here’s the shower.” His hands back on my shoulders, he spun us around until we stood next to a section of the room that was walled off with glass.

The material wasn’t my favorite, and I’ve never seen any this perfect, but I made sure not to touch it either. Well, at least not where he could see me do it. Not the first time anyway. If something happened to me, I didn’t want an audience.

He walked beyond the wall of glass and turned another metal lever. He almost made a full circle with it before he came back just a little bit. “There. You use this to make it hotter or colder. Just grab her and turn left or right.”

I nodded, but knew I wasn’t going to touch anything in there except the water. Speaking of which. “Where is it?”

He pointed to the middle knob. “Turn this. It will come from up there.” He pointed at the metal square in the middle of the small room.

My heart sank. I crossed my arms. Jerked when I felt the wetness on my fingers. I looked down at them. Inspected them carefully. Not a single thread of black surged under my skin. Not even around my nail beds. Which is where the poison usually showed up first.

I shot him a big smile. “Can you turn it on for me?” I could dance in the water if it was the same as what came from the faucet. That hadn’t hurt me. It stood to reason that the metal square in the ceiling wouldn’t hurt me with its water either.

He gave me an odd look but nodded. He turned the middle knob and a torrent of sparkling rain fell from the stone heaven.

A moan burbled from my throat. I was so freaking excited. A warm shower. “Do you have soap?”

He was standing in the path of the water, his dark hair drenched as rivulets ran over his chiseled body. His black running shorts molded to his legs and groin.

I know I wasn’t supposed to ogle, but, stars, did he have a nice form. I swallowed