Page 7 of Secrets Within Us

“Where are we?”

He answered with no hesitation. “I told you already. My house. You were on my property when I found you.”

“No, I mean where, though. What town? What—state?”

He just stared back at me for a second before leaning further forward. “How do you not know what state you’re in right now?”

I had to tread carefully right now. I didn’t know if he was friend or foe yet and couldn’t risk telling someone too much. “Answer me first.”

He took a deep breath and watched me intently as he stated. “Utah. Outside of Provo, south of Salt Lake.”

“Utah,” I whispered as I tried to wrap my head around it while not giving anything away on my face. My gaze fell from his as the reality of that made my world spin again.

“What happened to you?” He asked quietly. His voice took on a calm, gentle edge I hadn’t heard yet, and his face relaxed with sincerity.

But I couldn’t tell him.

I had to take it to the grave.

And that grave had already been dug for me.

So instead I lied. “I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.” He answered instantly.

I didn’t look back up into his eyes as I stated. “That’s not a question. Or an answer to one.”

“Fine. Why are you lying, then?” When I didn’t answer or look at him again, he tipped my chin up with his fingers until my eyes met his. “Tell me what happened to you or tell me why you won’t be honest.”

“I don’t know how to answer that.” He looked ready to interject again, so I held my hand up between us, “Truthfully. I don’t know what happened to me exactly. I don’t—understand it. Therefore, I can’t answer you with anything other than I don’t know right now.”

He mulled that over again as he dropped his hand back to his own knee. “But someone did this to you?” He asked as he waved his hand toward my battered body. “It wasn’t a car accident or something, right? Someone put their hands on you and beat you to a bloody fucking pulp, right?”

“Yes,” I answered quietly again and dropped my gaze to my hands folded in my lap.

“Was it your boyfriend? Or an ex?” He asked rapidly, trying to make sense of everything.

“You’re not letting me ask questions,” I said to cut him off.

He took a deep breath before rubbing his hand over his face exasperatedly, and then sat back and nodded for me to proceed.

“No, it wasn’t a current or past boyfriend.” He nodded again, then, just one curt nod, like he already knew the answer to that.

“I don’t take you for the kind of girl to let a man beat up on her regularly and I don’t take you for the kind of girl to date someone who would try.”

“You’re right, I’m not and I wouldn’t. But enough about me for a second. I don’t even know your name.”

He hesitated briefly, deciding if he would answer. “Kip. You?”

“Hadley.” I didn’t give my last name, seeing as how he didn’t.

“How old are you?” He asked quickly as he looked back over my body again, as if he was trying to tell how old I was by that alone.

“Twenty-three. Yourself?” I pulled the blanket up to cover my chest a little as his eyes settled there, no doubt having an easy view of my breasts through the thin shirt. They weren’t small, leaving them hard to hide without a proper bra or baggy sweatshirt.

He noticed my moves, and no doubt knew why I was doing it, realizing that he had been caught. “Thirty-five.” He stood up and walked over to the fire and put another log on it and I welcomed the heat.

He grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and walked back over to me with it, holding out a pill in his hand for me to take as well.

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