Chapter 8
Three/Bowen
Everything was red, and it was all my fault.
I was ashamed. Exhausted. Afraid. I didn’t know what to do with these feelings and I didn’t want them.
When I’d woken up this morning, alone in the bed, I’d panicked.
Panic.
That had been the very first thing I felt. Why? Because I was afraid Cain had left me here. Abandoned me after everything he’d witnessed yesterday. After everything I’d put him through.
I wasn’t sure why I thought he’d leave his own house when it made more sense for him to take me out and abandon me somewhere. It wasn’t really a rational reaction. Just an all-consuming, visceral fear of losing something—someone—I actually…liked.
I’d scrambled out of the bed, getting twisted up in the covers and falling onto the floor.
I cried out in pain because I landed on my bad shoulder.
It throbbed and ached under the new bandage Cain had put on.
I wanted to claw it off because it was so fucking tight that it was only adding to the agony.
But before I could, the door flew open and Cain stormed inside with a panicked expression.
“What happened? What’s—”
He really was fast for his size. Before I could say or do anything, he’d scooped me up and was carrying me out of the room.
And I let him.
“You need to be careful with yourself,” he said. There was no anger in his words, on his face. Just…concern.
He was genuinely worried about me, and I had no idea how to handle that.
Go with it? Pretend it was real even if I couldn’t fully trust it?
I wanted to believe it was genuine—and that surprised me.
He brought me to the room with the couch and pillar—the living area, he called it—and set me gently on the couch. Luna was sleeping in the corner, as usual, and she lifted her head and wagged her tail when she saw me.
Cain asked me if I was hungry, then smiled wide when I told him I wanted apples. As if I hadn’t tried to hurt him. To kill him.
As if I wasn’t a monster.
As I ate, he started working on something at a table in the corner.
When I’d asked him what he was doing, he said, “Whittling.”
After he’d explained what that was, I let him work.
Everything was hazy. My mind, my vision. It was like I’d walked through a million spiderwebs that all stuck to me, slowly coiling tighter. I just felt…numb. Cold and numb.
I absently ate all the apples and flipped through the thin pages of one of the books with unseeing eyes.
I couldn’t read a single word on the page.
I wanted to read. I wished I could. He said he would teach me, but I doubted he would after what I’d done yesterday.
As soon as I finished eating, Cain set down his tools and cleared his throat.
“So…the wire that runs from the solar panels to the electrical grid got destroyed last night. I thought I had more wiring, but I don’t, so I’ll need to go out and find some to replace it.”
It didn’t go over my head that he hadn’t explicitly said I’d been the one who’d destroyed it.
But I had.
I did.
And I didn’t understand why he wasn’t kicking me out, telling me to go before I destroyed everything else—including him.
“The backup power won’t last more than a few days. I’ll need to go to the town nearby and see if I can find something. Otherwise…”
He sighed, not finishing his sentence.
Nausea churned in my gut. A deep, heavy ache crushed my chest, compressing my lungs.
“Let me come with you. Please.”
This was my chance. I could make a run for it. Get out of here before I did any more damage.
He opened his mouth, then pressed it into a thin line. He sighed after a moment and tapped the table. “Yeah. You can come.”
Excitement hummed through me, and his next words squeezed my heart.
The way he was looking at me was strange. Intense. I couldn’t sense any anger, but that—
“I thought of a name for you. I mean, only if you want it. You don’t have to use it. I just…” He scratched at the underside of his jaw. “Well, I thought you deserved something better than a number. Would you like to hear it?”
I nodded, not even breathing.
He tilted his head and smiled. “It’s Bowen. I read it in a book once, always liked it, and I feel like it suits you.”
Bowen. Bowen. Bow. I looked at his hunting bow, a strange, light feeling swelling in my chest.
I liked that. Strong and useful, like his bow.
“Bowen,” I whispered. “Bowen. Bowen.”
Bowen.
“Do you like it?”
The feeling kept growing until it was spreading through my body like fire in my veins, and when my lips stretched wide, I realized I was smiling.
I was smiling.
Now I really wished the muzzle was gone so I could feel that smile with my own fingers.
“Oh, wow. You really do like it. I’m glad.’’
Bowen.
I had a name.
Cain refused to let me walk, and I didn’t argue when he said it was either let him carry me or stay here with Luna.
I let him carry me.
I liked it when he carried me.
Somewhere along the way, the numbness that had enveloped me wore off and an awful, heavy guilt started growing in my chest, building and building until I could barely breathe.
Never in my life had I felt safe when it rained.
But yesterday…
Yesterday had shown me that not everyone was like Hunter and Hayes.
Here was a man who lived alone with a beast, had brought another beast into his home, and instead of punishing me for what I was, he’d only wanted to help me.
It was incomprehensible.
The sexual aggression had hit me hard this time, for some reason; had been stronger than the rest of it—for a while, at least.
I’d never come so many times during a storm. Never been turned on to the point of losing myself. I truly was an animal when I was like that; no rational thoughts entered my mind, nothing to suggest that I was human at all.
An overwhelming emotion surged in my chest, a tight knot forming. My breath hitched, my nose prickled, and the most crushing panic flashed through me.
“What’s wrong?”
I turned my head to find Cain looking up at me with concern etched into his features.
Concern for me.
Me.
The animal that had tried to kill him.
I wanted to see those two deep grooves beside his mouth when he smiled. To see the crinkly lines that appeared next to his eyes. I didn’t like the dents between his brows, the frown pulling at his mouth.
“I’m sorry.” I choked on the words, turning my face away.
“What’re you sorry for?”
Being held in his arms like this, carried by someone so big and strong and yet so gentle, was the most comforting thing I’d ever experienced.
I didn’t know that it was possible to feel this way.
I didn’t know that any of this was possible.
Any of these new emotions that had been pulled out of some place inside me I didn’t even know existed.
I hadn’t thought I was capable of anything more than anger and violence, fear and hunger. Desperation. Numbness.
Was he creating these new feelings? Or had they lived buried inside me, and he was unearthing them, dragging them out into the light and giving them a place to live? To breathe?
“It’s alright, you don’t have to be sorry,” he said, that deep voice rumbling through him into me.
I placed my palm over his chest, wanting to feel more of it, to hear it again.
I had so many urges that were impossible to resist when it came to him.
“You already apologized yesterday. Don’t feel bad, Bowen. ”
Bowen.
A name.
My name. And there was someone to call me by it.
But…I did have to be sorry. I was sorry. And I’d never been sorry in my life. Had never said those words to anyone before.
This man could have easily killed me for what I’d done, and he hadn’t even hit me. No punishment whatsoever.
Hadn’t kicked me or slapped me or done anything to hurt me. In fact, he was more concerned about my reopened wound than the huge gash I cut into his arm.
The riotous aggression had fled a lot faster than usual, which I was really thankful for. It must have been a quick storm; sometimes it rained for a few minutes, and sometimes it rained for days. The latter didn’t happen often, but when it did…
I could clearly remember the last storm that had stuck around for days. Those had probably been the worst two days of my life. It was a blessing when it was just a few hours.
I shook my head. That was then, and now…
Right now, all my senses were focused on Cain and everywhere we were touching. He held me high against his left shoulder, his arm beneath my ass and his hand gripping my thigh, keeping me secure against him—and with such ease that I was jealous. I wanted to be that tall, that strong.
Being small had made me an easy target over the years, but…well, I supposed there were some benefits to being small. I never would’ve escaped if I were any bigger.
He’d wrapped his other arm around my calves, one palm flat on the back of my thigh. I was secure in his hold, didn’t think for a single second that he would drop me.
“How did you get up here?”
His deep voice vibrated through his chest into my legs, making me shiver.
I didn’t understand what he was asking me, so I didn’t say anything.
But when he didn’t keep talking, I got annoyed because I wanted to hear his voice. To feel it. So I tapped his shoulder and said, “Keep talking.”
He laughed. “You want me to keep talking? Even though you won’t answer my questions?”
“I didn’t understand your question.”
“So you just don’t say anything?”
I was starting to get irritated, so I scowled and stared at the trees ahead without answering.
“Like now. You know, it’s polite to answer someone when they’re talking to you.”
“Polite?”
“Yeah. You know, manners and shit. Being kind.”
Because I still wasn’t understanding half of what he said, and that was bothering me even more since I wanted to understand, I grabbed a piece of his hair and pulled.
“Ow! What the hell, that hurt!” He reached back and grabbed my hand, looking up at me with wide, surprised eyes. I got distracted by the way his thick lashes framed those eyes. How they curled a little at the ends.
“Why are you pulling on my hair? Use your words, Bowen.”