Page 24

“You snored a little,” Wade says, from across the room where he’s putting the finishing touches on a fresh fire.

“I must have been exhausted to sleep through you coming out here.” Several days of sleep deprivation will do that. Not even her worry for him could keep her eyes from drooping. Kara’s nose wrinkles. “I don’t snore.”

“Sure.”

It’s a tease she welcomes because it means he’s a little closer to himself again.

“Did you sleep that hard all night?” He pokes at the fire until it begins to spread across a second log.

“Not at first. You?”

“I managed.”

She suspects that means he didn’t sleep at all. The bags under his eyes and hollow look on his face confirm he struggled more than he’ll admit.

She has to find a way to get them back in the same room tonight.

Told him it was okay to pull back, and she meant it, but there’s a fine line between needing space and losing sleep in an effort to keep her safe.

That’s a conversation for later, though.

She needs the rest of the day to come up with a valid reason he’ll accept.

When he shoves a few strands of hair off his face, only to have them fall back again, it’s a reminder that he’s holding onto a physical aspect of his ordeal. Helping him get rid of that is something she may be able to tackle right here and now.

“How about I take a few inches off today?” she tries.

“Think it’s a bad idea.”

She remembers how easily he touched her the other night, like being close after the nightmare had given him a boost to cross that line. “Are you sure? Because I think we can do it, and if we can’t, that’s okay too, but trying might be a good thing.”

He chews on his bottom lip, stroking the dog’s head where it rests in his lap. “Dunno how to explain, so it makes sense. You might take it wrong.”

That doesn’t sound good. Her stomach does a little flip as she prepares for the worst possible answer. “Try me.”

“I can touch you, still feels a little…off, like my gut is gonna flip, but it’s better. Not the same the other way around. I wanna throw up just thinking about it?”

He wasn’t wrong. It’s tempting to take that a certain way. She doesn’t want to know that he’s disgusted by her touch. She tries to remember what she read in that damn book, wishing she had it with her now instead of relying on memory.

“It’s called flooding, what happened the night before.

An overload of the thing you fear until you can’t stay in that mental space anymore.

That’s probably why it’s easier for you to touch me now.

I didn’t even think about suggesting it because it can backfire.

It doesn’t fix everything, though. Isn’t supposed to. ”

“Do you think I gotta flood it the other way, then?”

“No. Maybe? I don’t know. Might be a better idea to keep going slow. See where that gets us first. Please remember that I’m still winging it here.”

He ponders this a moment, his desire to move forward clear despite the initial refusal. “If I ask you to stop, then you will?”

“Of course.”

“What if I can’t ask? If I can’t say it? You must think I’m a fucking disaster. I wish I could make you understand why I can’t…do you remember who I was before all this?”

“I remember.”

Wade was brash and funny and always ready with a quip. So damn bold that she used to wish she had an ounce of his confidence back when they were teenagers. Wondered how he managed to harness it after all he’d been through.

“I don’t. Not really. I dunno how to be him again.”

“You don’t have to be him. We’re all different now.” She points to the hair tie on his wrist as he trails off. “Use this if you need me to stop.”

He nods, touching the band with his thumb. “Okay.”

* * *

He’s facing her on the closed toilet seat and the severity of his reaction to the impending haircut shocks her.

She wants to be able to separate herself from what he’s going through, but she’s too close to be objective. Having seen him in a far worse state before hasn’t prepared her for how difficult it is to watch him now when all he has to fear is her touch.

Kara hasn’t even begun yet and he’s already shaking.

One leg bounces up and down in a nervous tic, and his knuckles have gone white as he grips his knees.

Bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep dart around the room as if someone else might be hiding here, and he complains of a funny taste in the back of his throat.

“Close your eyes,” she tells him. “You can always tell me to stop, and I will. Or use the hair tie if you can’t say it.”

His eyes close and open again a few times before he forces them shut.

“We’ll go slow. Just remember that you’re always safe with me.”

He nods as his inhales grow sharp. She suspects the anticipation isn’t helping. So, instead of prolonging it, she takes a chunk of hair gently between her fingers.

Quick reflexes have already gotten the better of him, and she’s not naive enough to think that’s completely gone. When he flinches, she does too, mentally cursing herself for it. She needs to treat this like it’s no big deal or risk making it worse.

She gets to work matter-of-factly, snipping off long hair with scissors found in the kitchen drawer.

“Think I’m gonna throw up,” he warns.

She grabs the trash can to put in front of him, but after a few dry heaves, he shoves it away.

“Never mind. I’m good. It’s fine.”

“Need to stop?”

He shakes his head, and she doesn’t waste time getting back to work.

“How short do you want it?” she asks. “Like the last time I saw you? Somewhere in between?”

“Until you think it looks like me.”

She takes roughly three inches off the mess of hair and can’t help but run her fingers through it and across his scalp. She’s taking liberties, but he doesn’t say a word. The shiver that runs through him feeds into her hands and up her arm like a current.

“Okay?” she whispers.

“Mhmm.”

He’s so painfully close that she nearly wraps her arms around him to pull him in.

Manages to throttle that desire, but still takes full advantage of the access she’s been granted.

Her fingers find the smallest dip just past his hairline.

A fracture or crack that never healed properly.

She shouldn’t risk dragging up bad memories, but curiosity wins. “What happened here?”

“They told me they had you. That they were doing the same things to you that they were doing to me. Couldn’t get the door open. Couldn’t get out….and then the wall looked like a good option.”

He thought she was suffering and, rather than live with that, he tried to knock himself out.

“But then I saw you again,” he continues, one hand coming up to land tentatively at her hip.

He told her she came to him in dreams. She’s only grateful her likeness could help when the real her couldn’t.

She isn’t sure if his fingers follow the scar on her belly on purpose or if he landed there by chance. She guides him under the fabric to splay a flat palm against the jagged edges.

“I had one of them cornered in this old factory. He told me he knew where you were. That he could take me to you if I spared him.” Her eyes close, and her hand tightens to press his harder against her ribs.

“And then he smiled and slit his own throat. So loyal to Silas that he’d rather die than betray him…

and I lost it. Tore the whole room apart and threw a wrench against the wall.

It bounced back and caught me here. It bled for so long.

I cracked a rib at least, maybe broke it, I don’t know, but I couldn’t breathe right for two weeks. ”

She’d been so angry at having come so close, only to have it snatched away. Laid on the floor of that warehouse while the gash in her side bled, and wondered if her journey would end there.

Her breath hitches as he sways a fraction until his forehead comes to rest against her lower belly.

Her instinct is to welcome him in against her, stroking freshly cut hair and curving an arm around his shoulders.

He doesn’t balk like she expects, though his hands still tremble as they travel across bare skin.

He roams the expanse of her back and down to the waistband at her hips.

It’s not meant to be erotic, she knows that. A throb between her legs picks up a gentle cadence anyway. She wonders if he can feel her pulse where he’s pressed so close, or smell her arousal. Her body has an agenda all its own, and she frantically tries to tamp that down.

She wants to beg him to touch her, so willing and needy that he could do anything right now and she’d gladly accept it.

His forehead rolls against her stomach, nose nuzzling just below her belly button. Kara arches toward him without realizing what she’s done, heart in her throat when the tips of his thumbs dip into the hollow of her hips.

And then he stops, muffling a frustrated sound against her. “I don’t wanna be like this anymore. Why can’t I stop? It’s over. It’s all over and I’m still…”

“You’re so hard on yourself, Wade. If it were me in your place, you’d be so patient. I know you would. But you can’t give yourself the same grace. Why?”

“Don’t deserve it.”

“That isn’t true.” She knows he’s ashamed of whatever he had to do to survive, and of what they’ve done to him that he couldn’t prevent.

She’s the wrong person to help anyone through this. Hadn’t been able to work through much of her own traumas before even more piled up. She now holds a pile of guilt and shame a mile wide and at least three miles deep.

“There are things I haven’t told you either. Things I’ve done. Things I’m ashamed of.” Her worst sin flickers in her mind’s eye, an image of that child at one of Silas’s outposts, her whole life altered because of Kara. “Maybe one day we can—”

She’s cut off by a knock at the door that has the dog barking and Wade rushing from the bathroom before she can process the change.

He’s wild-eyed when she finds him with the shotgun in his hands. “It’s them. You gotta run. Out the back, just go. Go!”