He kisses me one more time, and then he stands. The evidence of his own orgasm has darkened one leg of his sleeping pants.
“Give me a moment to clean up and I’ll get you a towel.”
“I can soak a little longer.”
He smiles at me, but when he turns, the large slash scars across his back make my stomach twist and I sink lower into the water.
They’re a sharp reminder that it’s safe in here, but outside, it very definitely isn’t… and I can’t stop any of them from going out to do what needs to be done.
CHAPTER
NINE
CHRYS
Moonlight slants through the window—adark green reflection this time, reminding me of Kissu’s fur—and I can’t sleep.
Shock and Risk joined us at some point, and I slip my fingers in Risk’s where they rest on my hip.
We didn’t talk when they got home and it feels like we should have. It feels like we should have woken up.
“You should be asleep,” Risk says softly against my hair.
“I know.” Somewhere in the depths of my dreams, a whisper had worked its way to the surface.You can’t lose them.
Arc’s hand moves to hold both of ours, squeezing. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
I see the reflection off Shock’s eyes. We’re all awake, and I don’t know how to turn my mind off, even if my body doesn’t want to move.
“Have the three of you always been together?”
Risk nods against my back. “We were separated from the others from the beginning.”
Separated?
“She doesn’t know the beginning of that story,” Arc says, pulling Shock closer to him, taking his hand and adding it to ours. “Her sisters haven’t told her.”
I wait for a silent moment before I ask, “What didn’t they tell me?”
I look at Shock, because he’s the only one looking at me. Risk won’t meet my eyes. Arc almost looks like he’s still asleep.
“It’s not a nice story.”
They don’t want to tell me. Something ugly slithers in my stomach, but before I can tell them they don’t have to tell me, Arc takes a deep breath.
“We spent nearly twenty years?—”
“Seventeen,” Risk corrects.
“—locked away in a facility on the inner ridge of the Zone. A scientist had questions. We were the means to his answers…”
When he trails off, I tug them closer.
“He made us into what we are. His experiments gave him answers and gave us these mutations,” Risk says.
I’m afraid to ask… “What did he want?”
“To change us,” Risk says. “To make usbetterthan other Sians. And apparently the easiest way to do that was to torture us.”
