I caught her face between my hands, drawing my palm away from her heart while she still kept hers pressed against mine.
“Don’t cry,” I breathed, hating that I was hurting her. I didn’t want her to hurt any more than she was. I didn’t want her feeling any kind of pain at my hand.
I swiped her tears away with my thumbs and she just looked at me like she was begging me not to send her away.
“It’s for the best,” I insisted and she jerked her head out of my grasp, anger flashing through her gaze as she reached out and drew a word across my chest with savage strokes of her finger which were damn near bruising.
LIAR.
She leapt out of the chair before me and ran across the room before diving into the bathroom and throwing the door shut behind her. The sound of the lock clicking into place echoed through my skull and I groaned as I leaned back in my chair, tilting my head back until I was looking up at the wooden panels of the ceiling.
I clawed my fingers through my hair and wondered if there was any other way for me to do right by her. But I knew in my heart that trying to keep her here was selfish. She’d had a life before she was kidnapped. She had a family out there somewhere desperate to find out that she was safe. And once she was with them, once she started to get her memories back, I was sure she’d realise that I’d been right to insist she go back too.
***
The next morning when we woke, we ate in tense silence as Winter refused to so much as look at me, but I wasn’t going to be swayed. I understood her desire to stay here. Hell, I couldn’t think of many worse things than waking up tomorrow morning and finding this damn cabin empty, of knowing that I was back to being alone in this world. Even after weeks of sleeping on the fucking couch and getting my spine all kinds of fucked up while she just stayed on the floor, I knew I’d prefer that over the comfort of reclaiming my bed.
But this wasn’t about what I preferred. Or what I wanted. It was about doing the right thing. She needed to see doctors. She needed to find out if she had people missing her, have a chance to discover who she was before all of this. And most of all, she needed to be safe, away from the motherfuckers who had done this to her so that they never had a chance of getting close to her again.
And once she was gone and I knew for sure that she was safe, I’d have plenty to keep me occupied. Because these weeks spent with her had awoken more rage and bloodlust in me than I’d even realised I was capable of anymore. Even the thought of the vengeance I was planning to rain down on those sons of bitches had my heart pounding with exhilaration. They wouldn’t know what hit them when I came for them. They wouldn’t even see their death coming until it was too late. Not that I’d let them die quick. No, they’d earned themselves as much pain and suffering as I could inflict. In fact, maybe I’d set them in competition with each other. See which one of them could hold out the longest before the torture got too much and they escaped into death.
I took our empty plates and tossed them in the sink for later, trying not to go soft over the fact that it was the last time I’d be seeing two plates in there together like that for a while.
It was fucking ridiculous, to be this stuck on a girl who didn’t even remember herself, who I’d had to name, who had no voice. Maybe I’d just been alone too damn long. Or maybe she really was something special and I was a fool for letting her go. But I was also well aware that I wasn’t able to offer her much of anything stuck up here on this godforsaken mountain.
“Come on,” I said, my voice breaking the silence as I moved to pull on a coat and my boots.
Winter did as I urged, wrapping up as well and tightening the too-large clothes around her slender frame.
“At least you’ll be able to get hold of some clothes in your