He thinks he’s broken.He thinks he’s a lonely, lost boy.But all I see is ferocity.He isn’t fragile.He isn’t some tragic fallen angel stumbling through an expression of self-destruction.
He’s a survivor.
Not just a survivor of captivity but of a lifetime of it.Of whatever Denver did to him.Of unspeakable hardships in the hills.Of every scar branded on his body long before the doctor touched him.
He feels me looking and lifts his head.“Welcome to my freak show.”
“Wolf.”
“If I don’t make jokes about it, who even am I?”
“You don’t have to do that with me.No pretense.No judgment.No masks between us.”My chest feels so tight it’s hard to breathe.“Why did you jump?”
“For that, you need to meet Denver.Frankie introduces him best.”He plucks the book from my lap and replaces it with hers.“Need a break?Bathroom?Booze…?”
I’m already shaking my head, eyes glued to Frankie’s journal.No way in hell am I stopping now.I’m strung between dread and fascination, terrified of what I’ll find and starving for it anyway.
His fingers hook beneath my chin, gentle but unyielding, coaxing my face up until I stare into his stormy blue eyes.
“You’ve been reading for hours.”He examines my pupils, the tremor in my hands, the stiffness in my shoulders, every small tell he’s learned to read.“You don’t have to keep going tonight.You can sleep.Eat something.Breathe.”
I can’t.Not yet.
Swallowing hard, I refuse to look away, refuse to let him see how much his past has shaken me.After a too-long moment, he sighs, and a soft, sad look passes over his face.
“Okay.”He lets go, fingertips trailing from my chin as if reluctant to lose contact.“We’ll read together, and when you want to stop, say stop.If you want to know more, ask.If you want to skip, we’ll skip.If you want to throw the book at my head, aim for the soft parts.Deal?”
“Where are the soft parts?”
He presses his soft, warm lips against my mouth, slowly flicks his tongue, and leans back.
“Oh.”I pull in a breath and nod.
The spine creaks as he opens Frankie’s book.Her handwriting fills the first page, a looping scrawl that looks nothing like his.
He runs his thumb down the margin and begins to read.“They say obedience is survival.Staying silent is proof you don’t want more than your share of air.Obedience is the only language Denver respects.The moment you make a sound, you give him something to take.I learned that lesson on the first day when he took my unborn baby.”
The hairs along my arms lift.Wolf’s growly tone is a tool he doesn’t wield often.Every word rasps like it’s been rusting in his throat for years, scraped clean to reach me.The gravelly ache in it makes the story hurt worse, makes it more real.
He glances at me like an apology.
I expel a breath and gesture at the book.“May I?”
At his stiff nod, I read aloud.
I read through the first forty-two days of Frankie’s chilling captivity.I read until she finds bones.
Human bones.
And what does she do?
She collects them in a bag of blueberries and dumps the morbid pile onto Denver’s dinner.She feeds him his own damn ghosts.
You go, girl.
But as she warned in her opening sentence, defiance has a cost.In this case, kin punishment.
Denver pinned Kody’s hand to the table.With a fillet knife.That explains his stigmata-like scar.
