Page 52 of Chalk Outline

I walk across the balcony with the radio in my hand, resting my elbows on the top rail. I would do anything to cover her with a blanket and take her to bed right now.

“Winona,” I call.

She doesn’t respond.

“Are you trying to freeze to death?” I ask. “It can go below zero around here.” Not that it has, yet.

“Where are we?” she finally says.

“I can’t tell you, but it feels like the end of the world, doesn’t it?” I look at the stream and then back at her.

“Yeah. Did we fly here?”

“You’re far from home if that’s what you want to hear.”

“Yes and no.” Her soft breaths pull the strings around my heart. “You wanted me to be real with you. Now it’s your turn to be real with me.”

My brows knit together. “I thought I was.”

“You danced around the subject but didn’t elaborate. Your scars may have faded or not, but if you cut into the skin, it still bleeds. The wound inside you still exists.”

She can still read me like an open book.

I guess some things never change.

And she is right.

I never talked to anyone about what happened at the circus, not even with Winona, despite spending so much time together.I avoided it like the plague because if I opened that wound, it would make it real. It would turn me into a victim. A survivor. All those words I hate to think about. It makes me sick to my stomach.

“In a sea of monsters, are there really saints?” I toy with the cryptic words as they flee my mouth.

“Maybe one of them pretends to be one to survive.”

There it is. That splinter of hope we cling to—that deep-seated need to find goodness when bad infests deeply in our core.

That kind of weakness is lethal and easy to manipulate.

“Do you really believe that?” I ask, pulling out my lighter. I flick the switch on and off, toying with the flint wheel. Winona’s eyes slice up to mine. My subtle movements steal her attention.

“I have to.”

I want Winona to find her inner strength, not only when she holds a weapon or uses her combat skills.

“Why?” I press, narrowing one eye.

“Because that’s the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise, everyone I have ever known is a monster. A cold-hearted one with no conscience. If that’s what you imply?”

“You tell me, are they?”

She contemplates before saying, “Nice diversion. What you don’t talk about can’t hurt, right?”

I tighten my grip on the radio. “It hurts every single day,” I grit out. Anger pulses through me. I feel as if I’m being strangled, and someone presses down on my chest, denying me the oxygen I deserve. She reverses everything back at me in a cold and calculated way.

Physical pain doesn’t bother me, and intrinsic pain is the one I’ve been numb to daily ever since I was a teen.

Pain comes from losing her or being away from her. Everything else is insignificant in comparison.

“I’m all ears,” she says.