a big mouth and refuse to ever let them intimidate me.
“Bran is the one who found me afterward. I had disappeared and staff were worried that I’d fallen into a ravine. He knew better, discovering me in the camp office ready to erase the financial records of the school. Even then, computers were things that I understood while humans confused me. After that, things improved, for a time. He was my friend. Except when my father eventually caught wind of the happenings and considered any slight against me a slight against him. And that was it—he came and I was gone.
“On the flight home, he told me it was time that I become a man, not to let boys push me around. I didn’t realize what he meant until we arrived at my old home and there was Maryska. After I left, at sixteen, she was told that it was time to earn her keep. She had nowhere else to go, no one to turn to, and so she spread her legs to men like my father who came through the doors. That night, my father paid her to spread her legs for me.”
“Oh God,” I say, setting my hand on his arm. He jerks as if my touch is living fire. “The first time I saw you, you cannot know how it felt. The more I see you, the less I see her, but the resemblance is—”
“Uncanny, yes.”
“But you have such a hopefulness to you,” he murmurs, pulling me closer. “It is as if you are the sun, burning the shadows into submission.”
I tilt my face to receive his kiss when he stiffens. In the distance, over the sound of waves and wind, comes the faint womp-womp-womp of a helicopter.
“Katya.” He recoils. “You called him.”
I shake my head furiously. “Of course not.”
His shoulders crumple, his whole countenance retreating inward. “Bethanny…will you…will you hold my hand?”
“Yes, of course. What’s happening? Your face, that expression, frightens me.”
“Be frightened,” he responds gruffly. “If he comes now, he carries bad news.”
Chapter Eleven
Beth
The helicopter touches down on the launch pad and I do as Z asks and stand, holding his hand.
He tightens his grip. “Let him come to us.” Despite everything he said, I still have more questions. What happened with his father, with Maryska that made him fear physical touch for seven years? His story shocked and saddened me, but nothing so far warrants such an intense reaction.
The engine cuts out and within moments, Katya emerges, striding across the lawn toward us. Z isn’t a small guy by any stretch, but Katya is bigger still, a hulk of a man. He must work with an excellent tailor to attain such a good fit to his own suit.
He calls out something to Z that I can’t understand.
“She’ll stay,” he responds. “And we talk in English when she is present.”
Katya freezes, as if this reaction is not expected. I can’t decipher his eyes due to the sunglasses, but a muscle tics in the place where his jaw meets the skull. “Maryska’s gone.”
Z sways a moment before fixing his stance, turning to stone. “When?”
“Not long.” Katya demonstrates all the emotion of a statue. “A few hours.”
“Kurva.” The word bursts from him as a deep red flush blooms across his cheeks, his face locked in unbearable strain. “It is for certain?”
My whole body trembles, desperate to pull him to me, protect him from the unfolding horror but unable to do anything to stop the pain.
“You want to see her body?” A ragged tear of emotion rips through Katya’s stoic façade.
“No. Just…Kurva mat!” Z tears a hand through his hair and drops my hand, giving us his back, vibrating with a desperate rage.
“Take her,” he says in a grim voice. “Take her away from here. From me.”
Katya doesn’t miss a beat. He reaches toward me and I step back. Oh hell no. “I am not going anywhere.”
Katya hesitates. He honestly expected me to bounce off with him, as if Z says a thing and we all automatically obey.
That may be the case when I’m at the Fishbowl, at Zavtra Tech, on the clock. But here, on the coast in this fog-locked battleground between earth and sea, I owe no one anything. But that’s not true. I owe this hurting man my compassion. My touch. My reminder that he is only human and that it is okay to hurt.
“I’m not going,” I say, raw determination swelling within me.
Z’s teeth grind audibly. “There are things you do not understand. That