I lifted my finger and slowly painted words on his back. I can.
He inhaled slowly. “You can,” he echoed what I’d written and a small smile pulled at my mouth.
I lifted my hand again and wrote out ask me again across his broad shoulders.
“Okay,” he breathed like he was wary of hearing my answer. “Why did those men have you, Winter?”
I painted the answer on his flesh, digging my teeth into my lower lip. I don’t know.
“But you must know something?” he pressed, a note of anger in his voice. But not at me, at them.
I don’t remember, I wrote.
“How can you not remember?” he asked in a strained tone, his hands dropping and curling into fists at his sides.
I think I hit my head a long time ago. When they took me.
“Oh,” he whispered. “So did they…hurt you?” he asked in a tight voice.
Yes.
His muscles bunched. “Rape you?” he questioned in a gravelly tone that set my pulse racing.
No.
His shoulders dropped dramatically. “Well that’s something, I guess,” he muttered, but he still sounded angry as hell.
He turned around, his expression taut as he surveyed me. “Do you have any questions for me? I know it must be hard to trust me. I realise I’m not exactly a shining prince, baby doll.”
I let my eyes run down to his chest, roaming over the scars which branded his muscles, the little imperfections that almost matched the ones on my body. I wondered if the people who’d placed them on him were lying in cold graves just like I wanted my attackers to be.
I brushed my fingers over the gunshot scar on his right shoulder then painted the word how? beside it.
“That’s a long story,” he said with darkness seeping into his gaze. “The short version is that I lost someone important to me once…when I tried to find her, some assholes did this to me.” He pointed at a few more scars, including the one on his cheek and I nodded, painting another question on his skin.
Did you find her?
“Yes,” he said thickly, clearly not wanting to offer me more than that.
I lowered my hand to his stomach as a sweeping chill took over my body. I didn’t know why it bothered me so much, but the idea that this man was someone else’s saviour made me feel kind of lonely. He had a life. One with tangible memories that made him a whole person. Not some half-creature who didn’t even know her own name.
I dropped my hand but he caught it before it fell at my side, placing it back on his flesh with an intense look that made my heart pound.
“Ask me,” he growled. “I can see the questions in your eyes.”
I tentatively painted circles on his stomach as I hesitated and goosebumps raised on his flesh. He caught my wrist with a low noise in his throat and I lifted my gaze to his, my lashes framing my vision as I took in his beastly expression.
Who is she? I wrote the words slowly, knowing I didn’t really have a right to the answer. But he’d said I could ask.
“She’s…a friend,” he said, his words carefully chosen.
I nodded, slipping away, my walls rising. I didn’t even have a right to this man’s safe haven, I certainly didn’t have a right to know details about his personal life. Maybe a part of me was jealous. Because he could leave this mountain tomorrow if he wanted and nothing would be left behind. But beyond this mountain, I was nothing but a ghost. My reality existed here and nowhere else. And so did my destiny. To end The Five. If I managed that – no, when I managed that – I didn’t know what would become of me. Maybe I’d be cast to the wind.
“You should get some rest,” Nicoli said gently, pointing to the bed.
I nodded, heading towards it and taking a blanket from the end.
“Sleep in it, Winter,” he demanded, but I ignored him, heading to the floor across the room and dropping down beside the wall.
I pulled the blanket over me, taking slow breaths as I gazed down at the grain in the wood. The Five weren’t going to stop looking for me. And the longer I stayed here, the more danger I put Nicoli in. But I still didn’t have a weapon or a plan or even shoes to go hunting them in.
Nicoli dropped down onto the couch and I glanced over at him before my gaze shifted