When I awaken,light fills the room, and I jolt upright, consumed with an irrational panic.
Where’s Selene? Has she run out into the wilderness again? Did she vanish while I slept?
I hop off the cot, put on my clothes, and search the house for her. When I find her, though, it’s right where I left her—in the bed, reading a book. I’m panting when I come in, and her brows rise.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought…” I shake my head to clear the remnants of my dream away. “What are you reading?”
“You had a very thrilling adventure novel on the shelf. You said I wasn’t supposed to walk, and I haven’t read a book in a long time. Unfortunately, I have somewhat forgotten how to read.” Her eager smile is the opposite of what she just said, though. “I’m enjoying myself. Re-learning.”
“Why so long since you last picked up a book?” I ask, coming to sit at the foot of the bed.
Her lips purse. She’s clamming up again, but I don’t pry further, simply waiting while she thinks. Those kaleidoscopic eyes study me, like Selene is trying to determine how trustworthy I am.
“Father didn’t bring me books,” she says at last. “I asked for them, but he said it would put ideas in my head. Bad ones.”
I try not to react to this information, nodding as she talks. But I already dislike the sound of this man.
“You said he brought you food, too,” I say gently. “What do you mean? You didn’t have access to these things? Books and food?”
Selene balls up the blanket in her hands. “No. I didn’t. Not unless he brought them.”
“Why?” I press.
“Because he kept me in a room. With the door locked.”
My vision swims for a moment. That would explain so much of what I’ve seen. The skittishness, the malnutrition, the atrophy.
I swallow hard before I ask, “For how long?”
“I don’t know. Years, I think. I was eighteen—eighteen and a half—when he put me in there.”
She is certainly more than eighteen now. Perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five, though it’s hard to tell with how skinny she is.
“Years,” I echo. “Your father locked you up for years without ever letting you out? For sunshine? For fresh air?”
Her face is shockingly blank as she whispers, “But he brought me food.”
I am so aghast I don’t know what to say. I lift a hand toher cheek, and at first, she flinches. But when I don’t move, when I don’t look away, she returns my gaze.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m sorry someone did this to you. And I’m glad that you made it out alive.”
3
SELENE
No one has touched me in… who knows how long now? I wanted to run at first, but Harry’s touch is so gentle despite his size, his blue eyes so soft with his shaggy brows tilted in sympathy, that I stay put. The feeling of his warm skin against mine is intoxicating, overwhelming. I’ve been starving, I think, and I didn’t even realize it.
“Selene.” His voice startles me. “Did he hurt you? Your father?”
The question surprises me. “Never. He wouldn’t. He locked me up to… protect me.”
Confusion settles over Harry’s face. I shouldn’t have said that. Now it leads to the secret, the secret I can’t tell him.
“What did he think he was protecting you from?” he asks. “There’s no reason to do what he did to you.”
“There are bad people out there,” I protest, drawing back from his touch. “Thieves. Bandits.”
