Page 52 of Tortured Soul
“Having a beard not itching anymore?” I asked, noticing the stubble on his face.
He turned his head away, clenching his jaw. “I’ve been moving a lot. Haven’t seen a mirror in the last couple of days. I sometimes feel like ripping my face off, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
I fought to keep the smile from my face, but he noticed. Healwaysdid.
“Why are you here?” I asked before he could say anything.
His tongue slid over his teeth, fingers tightening on his own arms over his chest. I took another step.
“I was in the neighborhood.”
I gave him something between a scoff and a chuckle and the corner of his lips tilted up. “Right. Lots of neighbors around in this deserted state.”
“Socrowded,” he crooned, fighting his smile from growing on his lips. “I have an aunt just a few miles away, she invited me over for taco night.”
I snorted and he straightened up as I took another step. “Right, your aunt. Was it the one you said died about sixteen hundred years ago? Or the one you killed yourself even before that, because she attacked your mother when you were a teenager?”
He chuckled, the grin spreading. “Definitely the first one. Rimma would never have invited me.”
I shook my head softly as he uncrossed his arms, letting them fall by his side. My hand couldn’t help from reaching out to grab one of his.
“Why are you really here, Dimitri?” I finally asked, turning serious. Curious.
The silence stretched for a few seconds, just enough for me to pinch the arm of his sunglasses, sliding them off softly.
Red. Gone was any trace of the blue irises that were there when we met 1,574 years ago. But despite the unnatural color, there was no trace of the madness that sometimes took over him.
“I didn’t lie,” he said, voice low. “I was nearby and I felt you. I thought I should come and say hi.”
I arched a brow, interlacing our fingers.
“In the last centuries, there were many times I could feel you close-by, but you never came to say hi. Why now?”
His gaze drifted to the side again before falling on our hands. His thumb started to rub soft circles on my knuckles.
“Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day I left you behind,” he said in a pained murmur. “Exactly fifteen hundred years ago.”
I frowned. “We’ve seen each other since. It’s not like—”
“Iknow,” he rasped. “It’s just—I miss you. And Iknowwe both had our issues in that whole mess, but sometimes it’s hard to just stay away.”
My face fell, my heart sinking. The guilt I kept buried for all those years and longer coming back to the surface.
“Iwas the one who screwed up,” I said, leaning toward him, grabbing his chin with my free hand. “Not you. It’s my fault yourcurse—”
“I just want to spend a little time with you. I think I need it for my sanity.”
My throat bobbed but I nodded, lifting my hand from his chin to his cheek, sliding my fingers in his stubble.
Something flickered in his eyes and his hand tightened around mine. It was bothering him.
“Do you have something to shave with in that backpack of yours?” I asked, nodding to the large bag on the ground next to the bike’s back wheel.
He let go of my hand, took his sunglasses, and turned to rummage through it, straightening back with a small dagger and a tin box, the glasses dropped somewhere inside the messy bag.
“A little much for a shave, don’t you think?”
He shrugged. “It’s sharp and it does the trick.”
