“But you put distance between us, Vaughn, doing everything under the sun to keep me at arm’s length. Every time I tried to get closer, you just slipped through my fingers like sand.”
“I was…scared.”
“Scared of what? Being found out? Well, it happened anyway, and I’m still alive.”
“No. I mean, yes, there’s that, too, but mostly, I was scared of the strength of my feelings for you.” I squeeze his hand, holding it in both of mine softly, reverently. “You make me a different person, someone I don’t recognize sometimes.”
“Is that so bad?” The pain in his words cuts me open.
“No, it’s actually the person I want to be. You…make me forget about everything, and I crave that feeling of being free whenever I’m with you.”
“But?”
“There’s no but.”
“Are you sure?” He eyes me suspiciously. “There’s always a but with you, Vaughn.”
I purse my lips, not liking how he keeps calling me by my name. “Not this time.”
“Then another time?”
“Why do you keep trying to find fault in everything I say or do?”
“Because I believed the illusion before, whether four years ago or during recent months, but I still ended up getting hurt.”
“Four years ago?”
He pulls his hand from mine, using my moment of bewilderment to slip free. “You left me to die in that cave, remember?”
“No, I didn’t. I would’veneverdone that.” I frown. “Wait. Is that what you think happened?”
He stares out the window, and I grab his jaw, stroking the stubble growing there as I turn him to face me. “Do you believe I ever would have left you after you took abulletfor me?”
“But you did.”
“No.” I run a hand through my hair. “I thought I’d take this with me to the grave, but it seems you need to know what truly happened, Yulian.”
34
VAUGHN
FOURYEARS AGO
Iran away from home.
I know. Me? Running away from home? It’s a blasphemy I never expected to take part in.
And yet that’s exactly what I did.
Mostly because I doubted my parents would ever let me leave their sight after everything that happened at the camp.
I wasn’t hurt, not really—just a few lacerations from when I slid down a hill with Yulian unconscious on my shoulder yesterday morning. At the time, the pain didn’t register. The need to get him out alive burned through everything, numbing me to the rest.
All my focus narrowed to a single purpose—getting him to safety.
And I did.
After what felt like an endless trek down the mountain, my father’s men finally found us—they’d been searching all night. Not long after, Yulian’s people arrived and took his limp body from my arms.
