Page 21 of Perilous Healing

“Would be nice for a change.”

“You.” The single word carries far more weight than I think she realizes.

“Me.”

“Yes. Things were so strained between us after?—”

“We nearly died and you bailed the moment you got the chance?”

She shakes her head, and I note that she runs her fingers over the pages of the Bible. Does it bring her comfort to do that? “I thought that if I left, you’d find peace. I was worried they’d track me down and if I was near you—they weren’t after you.”

“They were after both of us,” I remind her. “I escaped, too.”

“But I was?—”

“I know who you were,” I snap. “Who you are.” My tone is harsher than I mean it to be, so I take a deep breath. I’m not out here to argue. To let her defend a position I’ve been aware of since that day in the jungle. Truth is, in her shoes, I don’t know that I would have been upfront either. But it still stings.

Each and every moment we spent together in that jungle, running for our lives, is branded in my brain. And somehow, the worst of it wasn’t the pain or the hunger. It was finding out that the woman I had fallen in love with wasn’t who I thought she was.

That she’d been lying to me from the start.

“You mean a lot to me, Silas. I know that you’ll never want to be friends, but I needed to be near you. I can’t explain it. But it’s the truth.”

Her words are a gauntlet crashing down on top of me. Both relief and pain resonate through me, and I can’t tell which is the better feeling. “I don’t trust you, Bianca.”

“I know you don’t.”

“And that’s not going to change.” I meet her gaze now. Her gorgeous emerald eyes that haunt my every waking hour. “Ever.”

They fill with tears, and she nods.

Desperate for distance between us, I stand. “Your ceiling is patched. I’ll finish up the framing tomorrow.”

She stands. “My ceiling—you worked on my ceiling.”

“Mrs. McGinley let me in because I told her I’d fix the damage so she didn’t have to wait for a contractor.”

Her expression softens. “Thank you.”

“I did it for her. Not you.” But we both know that’s not true. My gaze dips to her lips. To the mouth I tasted briefly all those years ago, and the affection I still carry—even as I wish I could have ripped it out of my heart by the roots—springs to life.

“I appreciate it anyway.”

“Yeah. Well?—”

“I gave Lance that list of names he was looking for,” she interrupts.

“Good. Then they’ll find him in no time, I’m sure.” I turn away.

“I loved you, too, Silas.”

I freeze in place, her words carving away at my walls. “Which makes what you did even worse. Goodnight, Bianca.”

I come awakeat the sound of a branch snapping. Bianca is sleeping only a few feet away from me, her breathing soft.

But I know I heard something.

Gripping the scalpel I’ve been carrying since our escape, I roll up to the balls of my feet, then creep off to the side. Two men move through the jungle, dressed head-to-toe in tactical gear. If it weren’t for the armbands around their biceps, they could have been friendlies here to find us.

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