Page 25 of Shattered World

A silent message passed between the two of them, their eyes locked on each other’s.

“Keep her safe,” Warner urged.

Rainer’s fingers tightened on me as he nodded once. “With my life.”

Chapter Thirteen

Without my ineptness leading us, Rainer and I made it to the pier only a couple hours after our departure. We hadn’t said much on our walk, not wanting anyone on the sidewalks to overhear our conversations, but now that we were alone, I couldn’t contain my questions any longer.

“How did you make it here?” I asked, our hands swinging between our bodies as we walked the length of the pier, trying to stick to the sides of the buildings where we couldn’t easily be spotted.

“I don’t know if I want to tell you,” Rainer said, glancing at the map as we neared one of Caroline’s penned dots.

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“Because I don’t want you to see me as the bad guy anymore.”

His words cracked something in my chest and I shook my head adamantly, bringing our bodies to a halt until he turned toward me.

“Rainer, I never saw you as the bad guy.”

When he arched a brow, I amended my statement with a soft laugh. “Maybe an asshole. A big, mean asshole,” I teased and Rainer’s lips tilted up in a smirk, “but never the bad guy.”

With my declaration, Rainer explained what Warner and he had done. And although I hated that another innocent man had been in the crossfires, I couldn’t feel any guilt, not when it brought them back to me.

“Did you see anyone else at the train station? Anyone you recognized?” I had to ask, for Murphy’s sake.

I knew it was a silly question. If Rainer had seen Murphy’s mom or his parents, he wouldn’t have left them behind.

“No, Less, there was no one else there,” he said, pulling me along behind him as he continued our walk.

“Murphy still has hope,” I whispered.

I wondered if Sasha and Mina did as well. The rest of us knew the fates of our family and I wasn’t sure what was worse. The knowledge of their death or the hope that they were still out there, on their way to you.

“I know.” Rainer swallowed roughly. “I won’t take that from him.”

“But you don’t have the same?”

His parents were still out there. They still had a chance. He simply shook his head, looking down at me with a small smile.

“No. I haven’t had that hope for a long time.”

“Since when?”

Rainer didn’t answer right away, ducking in between two buildings, heading in whatever direction the map intended. Once we were behind what looked to be a museum, he turned my body, pressing me gently against the side of the building.

“Since the day we escaped into the woods. I knew then that it was Murphy and me against the world.”

My hands cupped his cheeks as the sadness in his voice washed over me. He may have lost the hope that he would ever see his parents again, but their loss lived inside of him nonetheless.

“He thought he lost you. He needs you more than you know,” I told him, and Rainer pressed his forehead against mine.

“And you?”

“I,” I struggled for the right words. “I was a mess. I didn’t know if I would make it through another loss that big.”

“You would have. You’re stronger than I ever gave you credit for.”

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