When I did, he appeared before me again, suggesting he was far more adept at moving around in a person’s mind than I was. “Normally, yes, I would say it was nothing but curiosity. That is how I’ve always been. Nothing matters to me, not really, but you’re different. I don’t know why, but when I think about that…” He paused, and a line appeared between his eyebrows.
Seeing him uncertain was strange, but it didn’t cool my temper. “I’m not your little puzzle! Stop trying to figure me out for fun.”
“It’s not that.” His gaze wasn’t on me, instead on the ground, darting back and forth in quick jerks. “I don’t understand how you could go through that and still be you.”
Thatdid give me pause, the words unexpected and honestly confusing. “What?”
“Your mind is fractured, your abilities changed by the trauma, yet you are stillyou.You still try to connect with others, still risk yourself, and I don’t understand how.”
“Again with the understanding. Why do you care?”
His next words escaped him in an unexpected and angry shout. “Because you did it and I never could!”
Chapter Eleven
Shear
The moment the words came out of my mouth, I silently cursed myself. I did not make mistakes like that. I wasn’t emotional, didn’t lose my calm demeanor. Even at times when anger would make sense, when any normal person would have reacted, I didn’t.
It had proven time and time again that I wasn’t normal, that I lacked the depth of feelings others possessed. It had always created a distance between me and the rest of the world.
The rift was smaller between the rest of the squad and me, but it still existed. They accepted me as I accepted them, but that didn’t mean we connected at all. In fact, how quickly they’d acknowledged my shortcomings suggested it hadn’t surprised them.
“What do you mean?” Yun’s question was soft, coaxing, as though my outburst had quieted her anger.
In for a penny, as Carter would say…
“You know I was raised at Obsidian.”
“I heard it wasn’t a good place.”
“It isn’t. It is little more than a lab that experiments on espers, who they believe will offer unique advantages. There is no true oversight, no rights, nothing. They can do as they please to those who go there—and they do.”
“What did they do to you?”
The question, one no one had ever asked me, threatened to open the floodgates to my own past, the ones I’d locked tight after each humiliation, each painful procedure, each time I was treated like a lab rat rather than a person. I couldn’t let them open, because I had no idea who that person might be. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I am who I am, and I am where I am, and nothing changes that. I simply don’t understand how you could have gone through what you did, how it could affect you this greatly, and you can still be the same person. You still feel, you still want, you still are a person even after that. It confuses me, so I keep thinking if I discover a little more, if I pry a little deeper, perhaps I’ll learn the secret.” It sounded pathetic even to my own ears as I said it, like a child whining for affection.
I hated it, but couldn’t stop myself from admitting it. Not because I truly thought she could answer, but because the idea of her blaming herself, of her thinking less of herself because she assumed I was looking down on her didn’t sit right.
She said nothing, taking so long that I risked lifting my gaze to find her eyes. Eye contact strengthened a connection, and a part of me didn’t want to hear what she thought, didn’t want anything that bound us closer, that made me privy to how she saw me now.
When she finally did speak, her voice was the sweetest I’d ever heard. “You know, it’s funny because I’d never think I did all that well handling anything. I mean, I’m a mess. I’ve been bounced from squad to squad, couldn’t even guide properly, still have nightmares every damn night. Trust me, I’m not exactly a great example.”
“You are to me.”
Her expression softened again, then she proved exactlywhyshe fascinated me so much, why I craved an answer to the puzzle that she was. She moved forward, rose to her tiptoes, and pressed her lips to mine. She’d kissed me before, after I’d blownIngram, but that time it had felt more as if she sought his cum rather than wanted me at all.
This time was different. This time, her lips moved against mine in a kiss so gentle it hurt somewhere deep inside of me. It was a sweetness I’d wanted even if I hadn’t known what it was, hadn’t tasted it before.
She slid a hand up my chest, moving it behind my neck as though to hold me close. She didn’t go further than the kiss, didn’t try to deepen it, instead seeming to relish in this chaste touch.
And for reasons I refused to examine, it soothed me. I returned the kiss, following her lead like a lifeline.
No, not a lifeline. That implied she was pulling me back to safety. Instead, it felt more like she waded in that ocean with me, content to tread water as though to tell me I wasn’t alone, that I didn’thaveto do it on my own.
The kiss broke my concentration enough that my control slipped. The shadows in her mind gave way, and I found myself returned to the real world, the sunlight on my skin.
And my lips still against hers.So much for keeping things private.
