Page 88 of Shatter

"When my father came home at night, and his boots came up the stairs, her face went hard like that ice." It comes out flat. "Every time. Like she'd frozen solid so nothing could get through."

Anni's hand comes up and presses flat against my chest.

She doesn't say she's sorry or ask what happened next.

Her hand stays there, over my heart, and she lets me breathe.

"Thank you." It's barely a whisper.

I turn my head and press my mouth into her hair.

It smells like my shampoo.

I lie there in the dark, under the blanket, with her weight warm against me and the rain coming down.

I don't let go.

Later, she's almost asleep.

Her breathing has gone slow and heavy against my chest, her hand slid down to rest on my stomach.

The rain has thinned to a whisper on the glass.

"Espen." She mumbles it into my skin, half dreaming.

She isn't asking for anything.

She's saying it to hear it.

I lie there with my eyes open and the ceiling fan turning slow above us.

For twenty years, nobody could lose me.

Nobody had me to lose.

I held doors and faded into the backs of rooms, and when I rode out of Delaware County, the only man who'd notice I was gone was an old widower with a bad knee.

Now there's a woman in my bed who knows my name and says it in her sleep.

And somewhere in Vancouver, a man with enough money to buy anybody is looking for her.

My arms tighten around her before I tell them to.

She sighs and burrows closer, her hair tickling my chin, copper and blonde.

My skin goes clammy under her hand and won't dry.

I turn my face into her hair.

"Annika." I barely say it, barely give it breath.

She doesn't wake and I don't sleep.

The window's going pink at the edges when my phone buzzes on the nightstand.

I reach for it slowly, so I don't jostle her.

She murmurs and doesn't wake.