Page 32 of Broken

Boomer gave him the finger.

Ireland was watching this exchange, a little smile on her face. Cole said to her, “See? He’s already made you smile.”

“And you don’t make people smile?”

“No. I offend them, usually. With my brutal honesty.”

Strangely enough, her smile got a tiny bit bigger. Then it disappeared again, and he could feel the sadness inside her.

He said, “Just because we’re not going to go hunting for random sorcerers right now doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to get the bracelets off. Thanatos is a powerful sorcerer, and he has a lot of contacts. So do other people at the Ridge.”

Like dragons. Gunn’s mate Michelangela was related by marriage to a whole pack of them. But he kept that to himself for the moment—he didn’t want to get Ireland’s hopes up about it. Dragons did what they wanted.

What else? Oh. He added, “You haven’t even had time to look at that book yet. At least you’ll be somewhere safe when you do it.”

She bit her lip, and shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

But in that moment, he did. She wasn’t just angry and scared. She felt totally, completely alone. And somehow he knew she’d always been alone.

Like him. He’d always felt different from everyone else. Apart.

At least he’d had Boomer. She had no one.

He wanted suddenly to wrap his arms around her and hold her like he had last night, but he didn’t dare. It might make her more upset.

So he said, “Probably not. I suck at understanding people, too. But we’ll figure it out. We can be partners.”

Like her and Riker. Only without one of them being a lying, cheating, evil bastard.

He held out his hand. “Deal?”

She hesitated for a long time, looking into his face, and then said, “Deal.” She took his hand, and an electric shock ran right up his arm. For a moment they just sat there, hands clasped, looking at each other.

Then the plane hit a bump of turbulence, and they were jolted apart.

But she picked up her sandwich after that and started eating, so that was good. And he could tell that she felt a tiny bit better inside. There was a little seed of hope there now.

So maybe this whole thing wasn’t going to fuck up too much after all.