He seemed skeptical but surprisingly kept his thoughts to himself. “And your parents?”
Inwardly, I grimaced. “They didn’t take it well. Theyaccused the doctor of lying. Of letting me manipulate him for attention. When he showed them the lab results and one of the X-rays he’d taken, they threatened to sue because they hadn’t agreed to an X-ray.”
Hiro’s espresso eyes burned like coal, the malice in them actually making me twist my fingers into the hem of the hoodie.
He caught my hand, gently smoothing my fingers from the fabric. “Stop that. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“They refused to pay for treatment, as it’s very expensive and we didn’t have insurance. They gave me extra chores to toughen me up and let my brother knock me around. When I would cry, my father would punish me.”
“Punish you how?” he asked quietly, eyes gleaming with enough malevolence to peel paint.
I shivered, and he frowned. “Why don’t you have any blankets?”
“They’re on my bed.”
“Answer the question.”
In response, I pulled the hoodie up my thigh and showed him the scars.
The muscles in his jaw bulged dangerously, but his fingers were little more than a soft caress against the faded marks. “And the ones on your back?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“I thought that was because you lived on the streets.”
“A few of them are.”
“What did he do?” he asked, gaze returning to the marks on my leg.
I tugged the hoodie down to conceal them. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Surprisingly enough, he accepted that to ask instead, “This is why you ran away from home?”
“Part of the reason.”
His gaze turned expectant, and I sighed. “A few years after my diagnosis, I confessed to my sister that I was gay.”
“You have a sister too?”
“I used to. She was younger than me and didn’t understand. So she asked our brother what it meant.” I remembered the look of disgust on his face that quickly transformed into hate. “He beat the crap out of me, so bad I couldn’t walk for a few days.”
Ghost shot up off the couch, his movements stiff. After placing me on the cushions, he paced across the room.
“My parents told him he did the right thing. After that, they called me damaged goods. My mom used to cry and say she wished I’d never been born. My father started to beat me, saying he would beat the evil out. One night, I’d had enough, and I ran. I knew if I stayed any longer, they’d eventually kill me.”
His voice was flat, void of empathy or even anger. He stood rigid with his back turned, hands loosely at his sides. “Tell me.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood. “Chris and Amanda Redding.”
He paused. “Are you afraid of me?”
“I’llneverbe afraid of you.”
“You answered.”
“I know.”
He turned, eyes finding mine across the short distance. I let him see the truth.I don’t care if they live or die.
