“I managed to get my legs free so I could stumble out of the warehouse—right before the whole thing collapsed. But I didn’t plan on going to the hospital.”
“Why not?” Killian cried.
“It was going to cost me money; I didn’t just have a burned face; I had broken ribs and probably a concussion. My wrists were bleeding from me trying to claw through the rope, ankles too. I thought... Well, I thought I would go home and maybe someone would have a home remedy.”
Killian made a horrified sound.
“In the end, I didn’t have a choice. I collapsed on the way home. Someone found me and called an ambulance.”
Killian pressed himself against Crush, his warmth comforting. “Was your family angry?”
“Well, I didn’t tell them the full story, so they were only somewhat angry. More horrified at the extent of my injuries. It turned out that the burning wood was poisoned. The doctors at the hospital didn’t realize it at first, until I developed breathing complications and my burn wound started bubbling green pus. I had to stay in the ICU for days. That whole time, I was worried about the hospital bill. Then my parents told me the bill was going to them instead, and I worried that they would disown me because of it.”
“I would be scared, too,” Killian admitted.
Crush hugged him. “What happened was, they made the hospital bill them instead. When I found out, I felt so bad; it was all my stupid fault in the first place. As soon as I was better, I started pulling all the shifts I could at the garage. I got a second job, too.
“In my downtime, I tried hunting down the traffickers with some friends—not my brothers, so no one could catch me in that lie. But we never managed to find them. That’s what I feel the worst about, these days. Back then, I was devastated about my face; Iwas pretty vain in my early twenties. It took me a long time to accept this scar.”
“It’s not so bad. It’s like a battle scar.”
“That’s what my brothers thought. They all wanted battle scars.” Crush rolled his eyes. “They were going to give each other dramatic scars so they could show off to omegas. I told them they wouldn’t have any cool stories to go with their scars. Our parents banned them from doing it.”
Killian laughed. “Why don’t you already have an omega, then?”
Crush’s smile was lopsided. “I was too busy trying to pay off that medical debt. In my free time, whenever I wasn’t hunting down the traffickers, I was learning advanced racing techniques. I did that at a track nearby. But since it costs money to burn rubber, I spent the rest of my downtime working on a racing game. So I could, you know, race without being at the track. I didn’t have money to take an omega out on dates; all of it either went to my car hobby, or the debt. I was still living with my parents, if you can believe it.”
Killian looked around the bedroom. “So, um, how did you get a huge cabin like this?”
“That racing game. I published it. Over the years, I tweaked it so it became bigger and better. It became my full-time job. Then it grew viral, and it began receiving offers from investors who wanted to buy it.” Crush shook his head. “I was going to sell it to the first person who was interested, to finally pay off that debt, but my parents said to wait. I did. And the offers grew ridiculous.
“In the end, I sold the game for a crazy amount of money, and here we are.”
Killian shook his head too. “I wouldn’t know what to do with all that money.”
“I paid off my family’s debt,” Crush said. “That was incredible. I bought a few properties for the pack, and a couple of safe houses for my friends to have on hand. The apartment you were living in is one I have a partial share in.”
It felt good, knowing that Killian had been living in a place he partly owned.
Killian smiled. Slowly, he raised his hand to Crush’s face. Crush stopped breathing.
Aside from his parents, no one had tried to touch his face. The scar was a taboo thing to everyone else; they didn’t joke about it, but they didn’t try to get close to it, either.
When Crush didn’t stop him, Killian trailed his fingertips across the scarred skin. The destroyed nerve endings sensed his touch as a faint pressure, barely there.
“Does it hurt right now?” Killian whispered.
Crush shook his head, his heart thumping. “I hardly feel your fingers.”
Killian drew soft lines from Crush’s cheek up to the corner of his eye, then sideways, to his temple. He pressed a little harder on the way down, along Crush’s jaw, his skin catching against the bumps and divots.
“You don’t act any differently, touching it,” Crush murmured.
“I hate that it happened to you,” Killian admitted. “But it’s just like my scars. It’s there. There’s nothing else we can do but move on.”
“Wise words, sweetheart.”
Killian shrugged, his gaze sliding over to Crush’s mouth. Those fingertips slid closer to Crush’s lips, tracing just below them.
