exited the house, heading for the path that led to the shallow creek about a quarter mile from the house. Hell, at this time of year, it might not just be shallow, it may have dried up completely. But if she hadn’t returned to the house yet, maybe she’d found something worth lingering for.
She’s not your responsibility, yet here you are. He’d promised himself he’d stop checking on her. And he would.
He swore beneath his breath, even while his feet kept moving down the dusty, dirt road that his young legs had traveled so many times when it’d been safe for him to sneak away for an hour or two.
He’d heard it said that some roads steal your time, some steal your comfort, and some steal your heart. Where had he read it? He couldn’t remember, but it had stayed with him the way quotes sometimes do. He’d thought of it that first day he’d made the winding drive that led back to Lilith House. He’d pondered on the question of what else the road that took him back to the place of his birth could possibly steal from him when it’d already taken those things. Nothing, he’d thought. There’s nothing more Lilith House can take from you. Now it was his turn to retrieve what he could. Until the other night, it had been thirteen years since he’d been in that basement. And the darkness . . . the damp smell . . . the familiar creaks of the house . . . it brought back too many memories. Conjured up the echoes of the screams from above, ones he could do nothing about. Strengthened his resolve to own those ghosts . . . that pain.
As he moved quietly through the forest, he heard the soft trickle of water up ahead. It drew him as that same sound drew all creatures, great and small. Life. He could smell the clean sweetness of it before it even met his eyes.
When he stepped through the trees, he stopped short, his ribcage tightening and his breath falling short. There she was, her skirt drawn up her legs, her feet submerged in the clear, shallow stream, her hands behind her on the ground and her face tilted toward the sun.
Something wild and ancient inside him responded. He didn’t know exactly what it was. Instinct? Some primal law of attraction? Whatever it was, it was simply part of nature’s order. Cam had studied math and English and science—Ms. West, the woman who’d eventually shared her name, had been an excellent tutor—but he’d also made nature part of his education by spending every second he could in the woods beyond the school, the only place where his soul felt truly free. The only place he’d ever felt he mattered. Not to any one person, but maybe just to some . . . system, or plan that was bigger—loftier—than the small world he’d been relegated to for his whole life up to that point.
What are you thinking?
I was thinking that I like that idea . . . that everyone who’s here is here to serve a purpose.
Their conversation came back to him. She’d put into words the things he’d felt—yearned so desperately to believe about himself—when speaking about her daughter, and it’d filled him with a wild hope, lit a small fire in his belly. It’d also caused turmoil, uncertainty, because it didn’t align with his well-laid plans. It went in opposition.
He drank her in, his eyes moving over the feminine lines of her body, her profile lifted to the sky. He’d meant what he said to Scarlett about the nestling—though he was pretty sure she knew as well as he did that he’d also been referring to himself—those primal responses determined by nature could not be avoided, nor changed. They simply were. That part he couldn’t fight, even if he tried.
Scarlett lowered her head slowly, her eyes opening and meeting his gaze. She startled slightly, sitting up straight and bringing her hand to her chest. “You’ve really gotta stop doing that,” she said on a small laugh.
“Sorry,” he murmured, stepping out of the trees and walking to the other side of the stream from which she sat facing him. He could have taken three steps and walked across it, but instead he sat down on a large rock next to him, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “One of the guys working at Lilith House said you were headed this way.” He