Page 16 of Fangs
“You don’t have to talk to me, but can you just nod or shake your head or somethin’ so I know you can hear me?”
“Fuck you,” I muttered without opening my eyes.
“Wow,” he soundedamused,“you’re just as grateful as your brother when someone saves your life.”
I rolled back to my side, staring at the fire. I wished he’d stop comparing me to my brother. My brother thought I’drun away.He thought the past twelve years meantnothing.He thought I hadn’t even begun to atone for Dune’s death.
“I’m pretty sure you have blood in your hair. Did you hit your head in the river?”
The back of my headwasthrobbing, but I just didn’t care.
“C’mon, Ember, please?”
I refused to acknowledge him, staring numbly into the fire.
Lee let out a long-suffering sigh. “You’re gonna make me do everything the hard way, aren’t you?” When I still didn’t answer, he shifted and grabbed my upper arm, pulling me upright. “Alright, the hard way it is.”
The movement made my head spin and throb, and when he released my arm, I swayed as the room tilted. He quickly grabbed me again.
“You’re probably concussed, Here, c’mere.” He tugged me backward between his legs, lifted my arms, and placed them on top of his raised knees. “You can hold onto me if that helps.”
I didn’t want to, but I also didn’t want to faceplant into the rocky floor, so I clung to his knees as the room spun. His hands gripped my head and tilted it down, his fingers searching through my hair. I sucked in a breath when his fingers pressed right at the source of the pain radiating through my head. He parted my hair carefully to look at it.
“Shit, yeah, you got a good-sized lump here, but it’s not bleeding anymore.” He paused, then muttered, “Who knows how much blood you lost, though.”
His hands moved through my hair again, and I felt him pause on the large scar on my temple from the mercs. He tilted my head to the side to see the scar that disappeared into my hair, gently tracing the jagged line with his finger.
“What happened here?”
“Nothin’,” I muttered.
“Oh, so youaretalking to me!"
Something about the way he said it reminded me of Sam, and grief washed over me.
“This is a pretty big scar for nothing.”
I was not about to explain my scars to this stranger. “It’snothing,” I said sharper, jerking my head out of his hands and facing forward again.
“Lemme guess, those scars on your back are nothing, too?”
My spine locked up as the memory of him touching my scarred back flashed back to me. I tried to remember what else he’d seen, but my memories were hazy and fragmented. I waited for him to ask about the brand with my heart in my throat.
“If I had to guess, I’d say those are scars from a whip,” he said with an edge to his voice.
I didn’t answer.
“And they’re not that old, either.”
I released his knees to tuck my trembling hands into my lap.
“Did Madame do that to you?” When I still didn’t say anything, he spoke again, his voice sharper. “You know your brother is not gonna let you get away with not answering these questions.”
Gods, that was why I didn’t want him to fucking know. I hadn’t planned for any of this. I was supposed to be too dead to answer questions. Lee must not have seen the brand, though. I doubted he’d stay quiet about it if he had.
“Is that why you didn’t want to change in front of Scar?”
The familiar smell of blood hit me, and I chased the distraction. I looked at my bare legs, noting the numerous bruises and scrapes covering my skin from banging into rocks in the river. I wasn’t bleeding, though. Where was it coming from? I glanced at Lee’s legs and realized he had a messy bandage around one calf. My fingers twitched with the urge to fix it. Had he even cleaned the wound? No, it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. I was not going toask?—
