struck fear in her heart as he leaned forward and revealed his scarred face and body in the shaft of light beaming down from above his bed.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he rasped, his single eye trained on her.
“I know,” she admitted softly and closed the door behind her. “But I am.”
Treating him like a wounded animal, she moved very deliberately, her steps slow and her arms at her sides. His gaze moved to the oxygen box she carried, and he frowned. “You’re wounded?”
She shook her head. “The mines have wrecked my lungs.”
A flash of sympathy crossed his face. “You never should have been in those mines.”
“But I was,” she replied simply. “It was the only life available to me.” Hesitating, she looked around the room for a place to sit. Finally deciding that the easiest way to talk to him would be to give him a sense of control, she folded her legs and sat on the floor in front of him, making herself small and unthreatening.
He stared down at her as if he couldn’t make sense of her. “Why are you here?”
“I wanted to apologize for leaving you behind.”
Obviously taken aback, he asked harshly, “What?”
“When I was in the duct,” she explained, “I should have found a way to get you out of there. I shouldn’t have left you there for another night of their torture.”
He stared unnervingly. “You did the right thing. You aren’t a covert operative.”
“It doesn’t feel like I did the right thing.”
“That’s how you know it was right,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Doing the right thing is never easy. It’s always painful. It will always make you second-guess yourself.”
She tilted her head and studied him. “You must feel a lot of pain then.”
“I do.” He avoided her gaze and admitted, “My whole life has been nothing but pain.”
Without thinking, she reached out and grabbed his hand. He stiffened but didn’t tug free. He let her hold his hand and seemed fascinated by the sight of her paler skin on his. “I’m sorry, sir.”
In disbelief, he asked, “Where the fuck did they find a girl like you?”
“In a cabin in the woods without running water or electricity,” she answered with a small smile. She let go of his hand and reached into her pocket to retrieve the orange. She presented it to him. “It’s not much, but it’s like a taste of sunshine in the dark.”
He stared at the orange as if it had jogged some bittersweet memory. His hand trembled slightly as he took it. He brought the ripe fruit to his nose and inhaled the scent, his eye closing briefly as emotion overwhelmed him. His mouth twitched with what might have been the beginnings of a smile or maybe even a grimace. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sir.” Certain she had stayed about as long as he could handle, she rose to her feet and picked up the box. “If you need anything, I’m down the other hall, right across from the medic station. I can listen if you have something to say, or we can sit quietly together.”
He didn’t say anything. His one eye remained focused on the orange he held. Accepting that as her dismissal, she murmured, “Good night, sir.”
“Did you see anyone else in the mine?” he asked, his voice rough and raw.
“Only the other soldier,” she said. “The one who died.”
“Devious.”
“Yes. Him.”
He turned the orange around in his hands. “You didn’t see a woman? Young like you. Quiet. Silent. Deaf.”
“No.” Whoever this woman was, she seemed important to him. “Someone like that wouldn’t be hard to find on the mountain. People who are different are easy to remember. I could ask Miss Kay.”
“Who is Miss Kay?”
“She’s with the Red Feather. She’s the one who asked me if I wanted to work with your forces. She knows everyone and everything. If there’s a deaf woman on the mountain, she’ll know how to find her.”
He shook his head. “Leave it be.”
She nodded and left his room, wondering who the mystery woman was. Someone who had helped him? Someone he owed a debt? Thinking about the skin traders on the mountain, Brook had a bad feeling the woman may have ended up in the same situation she had been in before Cipher rescued her.
When she turned away from the door, she gasped sharply and froze. The biggest man she had ever seen stood a few feet away from her. He had the shocking white hair of the pureblooded sky warriors and wore a uniform different than