“I…I remember things.”
“You remember everything.” Her lips twitch into a smile. “What was I wearing the day we met?”
“Green scoop-neck sweater, jeans with a rip mid-thigh, red Vans, a resin pendant in the shape of a teardrop, tiny silver hoops. Your smartwatch. Zion’s bracelet.” I don’t tell her what I remember most of all is how she smelled. How her voice trembled—both in anger and fear. And how those two emotions sounded completely different.
“And what do I do when I’m nervous?”
“Run your fingers over your bracelet. You count the beads. Or if you’re wearing your pendant, you trace the edges. Five times. Then you reverse directions.”
A light laugh trips from her heart-shaped mouth. “Really? I didn’t know I had a pattern.” Her fingers dip between her breasts, searching for the pendant she left tucked in her pack before she relaxes into my embrace again. “You don’tdouncertainty, Ry. You know why you’re not sleeping. So…tell me. I’m not sleeping until you do.”
The challenge in her gaze makes me want to bury myself deep inside her again, as does the way she’s pressed against me. Her nipples tighten, and her sweet scent surrounds us. I want to live in this moment for the rest of my life. Because here, everything makes sense.
“I’m lost,” I whisper. “And I can’t see my way clear.”
Her nod shouldn’t shock me, but it does. Somehow, she understands—but how, when I don’t? “Clear to what? The old you? The one who never asked for help? Who never let anyone in? Don’t go back there. Ever. Stay here. Where you have people who care about you.”
Sucking in a harsh breath, I try to free myself from the sleeping bag, but she tangles her legs with mine and holds on tight. Panic tightens a noose around my throat, and my words escape strangled and broken. “Wren, don’t.”
“You’re safe,” she says as she climbs on top of me, her hands on either sides of my shoulders, and her mouth inches from mine. “We’resafe. And I’m not going anywhere. You won’t lose me by letting me in.”
“I don’t know how.” A strange, choked sound in my throat might be a sob, and I try to lock my emotions away, but Wren sees through my efforts and cups my cheek.
“By letting go.”
Wrapping my arms around her, I bury my face in the soft silk of her hair and take a risk, letting a single ray of sunshine seep through the cracks in my black, cold heart. “I drive everyone away. I hate myself for it, but that doesn’t stop me. I don’twantanyone to get close. Because if I can’t keep the darkness buried, it’s going to swallow me whole. Me and anyone I care about.”
I take a deep breath, unsure I can get the next words out, but I have to try.
“You’re the first person in…forever…I want to see the real me. Please, Wren. Don’t let me shut you out.”
The determination in her eyes scares the shit out of me, but deep inside, a piece of my broken soul mends. And when she kisses me, an unfamiliar emotion settles over me.
Peace.
17
Wren
Iwake up alone. I don’t know why that surprises me, but it does. Cocooned in the sleeping bags, the scent ofussurrounding me, my heart aches. I thought we’d turned some corner. But the space next to me is cold, and from down the hall, I hear Ryker pacing. And muttering to himself.
I could go to him. Make him talk to me like I made him kiss me last night, but selfishly, I want him to come to me. To show me he understands…something. Me. Us. What happened after I found him in the kitchen, trapped in his memories.
So I pull the sleeping bag up to my chest, tucking it under my arms to hold it in place, and reach for my laptop. With my back propped against the couch, I’m almost comfortable in this old, run down house with sputtering heat and dust everywhere.
An email from Inara waits for me, and as I scan through her possible translations, pieces start to fall into place. All of Zion’s cryptic notes. Pulling up a map on my tablet, I scan the streets of St. Petersburg.
Wren, most of the letters and numbers you sent me don’t add up to anything—in any language. But four sequences could be Russian. I cross-referenced the words with maps of the city.
On one of the pages, Zion highlighted “nevostochnyy” and “podvoysk” and then had the letter X circled. What if he was indicating an intersection? Dal’nevostochnyy Prospekt and Ulitsa Podvoyskogo cross one another not far from the Neva River. Look at buildings around there. See if you can find anything suspicious.
If you give me access to the servers you hacked, I’ll poke around in the morning and see if I can find anything interesting.
Take care of Ry. He’s…difficult, I know. But there’s a heart buried under all of those muscles and pain. Find it.
-Inara
Of course she’d end the message with a plea. I’ve never met the woman, but after our single brief conversation and last night’s adventure, I feel like she’s someone I…could be friends with. And it’s obvious she cares about Ryker.
