50. CHAPTER 50 #2
Hot water rained over them both.
“Breathe,” Zayne said.
They both sucked in a breath. Released it together.
“Grip your shoulders. Feel your fingertips against your skin. Breathe.”
Memories of being nineteen and soaked in blood like this battered his mind. The smell was too similar. He remembered when everything had stopped back then. Everything. The torture. The screams. The pleading. The intermittent gasping of dying breath.
Hours before, Ashantae had told him no one would hurt him or his friends. Zayne thought he should have felt something, but he didn't. Not until that night, when the silence ripped him to shreds, and then finally, he felt it all.
Blood had oozed from his deep chest wound as his breath came too fast. Too strong. Ashantae held pressure to his wound, and Imani pressed his own hands to his shoulders.
“Breathe.”
They never left him.
“Breathe,” Zayne said.
Resting his forehead against the top of her head, he tightened his hold on her.
“I'm so sorry.”
The camera couldn't see them in here. It wouldn't pick up their voices over the rushing water. They were alone again.
In and out, they breathed together until she fell asleep.
Or passed out. He wasn't sure which. He closed his hands into fists, realizing his fingers rested against her arms. That first night, he knew he shouldn't touch her with bloody hands.
Knew it. Had he done this to her? Awful, aching pain filled his chest. Did he set her on this course that night?
“I'm sorry,” he said again, forcing that night to stop existing. Kira was his prisoner. The Phaedra ordered him to steal her heart. The least Zayne could do was show her the respect of not remembering how her lips tasted while he did it.
Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him.
“Zayne…” Kira twisted, and this time when she met his eyes, she saw him. Actually saw him. Her gaze still looked far away, but she was here.
“I've got you.” He wanted to sit back so she couldn't see him, but he wouldn't abandon her again. “You're safe.”
Her eyes dropped to his arms around her, like she had just woken up and saw it all for the first time.
Fear hit him that she might panic.
“I'll let you go,” he said. “I—”
Her hands shifted from her shoulders, fingers reaching until they grazed his arms. She was pinned with the way he held her, but she managed the softest touch against him. “No…”
Did she remember anything? If she did, she'd try to kill him, not touch him.
“Let's get this blood off you,” he said.
Gently, Zayne lifted her to her feet.
“Are you steady?” he asked.
Her face fell against his chest, body limp again. Glancing down, it looked like her cheek rested against bare skin from the water soaking his shirt. He might as well have been wearing nothing, but he figured the layer of fabric was better than that.
Then he glanced away before he saw her, and the clothes that would cling to her body. Maybe he couldn't give her much privacy, but he'd do his best not to see or think. Later, when she was alert, he didn't want her to feel uncomfortable.
It was all too close though. Too close to not feel her nearness when he was exhausted and beaten down. Too close not to feel the comfort of holding her. Comfort as deep and powerful as the unending grief.
He was overwhelmed. Dazed and lost.
But he had a mission. Free Kira from the blood.
Holding her up, he guided her beneath the water, making the shower rain red.
Weakly, her hands tugged at the bottom of her shirt. He knew the weight and horror of blood-soaked clothes.
“Okay,” he said, looking up at the ceiling while he pulled her shirt over her head. Kira's breath sounded more even, and when he felt fabric instead of skin against his chest, he sighed too. An undershirt. Finally, some good fortune.
He looked down only long enough to see the blood on her dark tank top, but it wasn't as bad as her shirt. Her pants were soaked, though.
“Here,” he said, turning the head of the shower away from her. Then he stretched a towel in front of her. “Good?”
She grabbed the towel but looked ready to drop it.
Zayne had heard stories like this of traumatized soldiers and civilians unable to move or speak for days. Weeks. Sometimes years, or their whole life. Would she escape this kind of shock and trauma? Kira couldn't be gone for good.
Zayne helped her slip out of her pants and then guided her hands to wrap the towel around her. She caught his shoulders, shaking badly again.
“We're figuring it out,” he said, tucking the end of the towel. “Right?”
Silence. Her head fell against him.
“Let's sit. Lift your hand if something isn't okay. Did you hear me?” Zayne lifted her face, trying to get her eyes to meet his. “I need to know you understand. That you can do it. Just lift your hand if you want me to stop at any time.”
A weak nod.
“You can lift your hand?” he asked.
Kira just barely lifted it. “I…” A whimper.
He'd rather return to the North again than see her like this. Brock could probably get her medication. People needed that when they became trapped within themselves like this. He didn't think it was simply from lack of food or water. She was catatonic.
Zayne sat and cradled her on his lap. “Okay still?” he asked, pulling her towel over her leg when it slipped.
He should have asked her to lift her hand to say yes instead of no.
He didn't know what he was doing.
“Hold very still.” With her head resting in the crook of his arm, he tilted her back to see her face and wiped the blood from around her eyes with a washcloth. Then he smoothed his thumb along her cheekbone to wipe away a smear of red. “There.”
Tears mixed with the water and ran in pink trails down her cheeks.
“I won't let go.” He ran cloth beneath her mouth. “I won't leave you. I'll stay here.”
Kira slipped in and out of consciousness while he cleaned her face, uncovering her freckles and her smooth chin, until no trace of blood remained.
After Zayne had pushed her onto her forearms in the basement, Kira had plastered her own face in the blood. He hadn't been able to do it. He'd been frozen, searching for an escape for her.
He never wanted to see blood on this face again.
Her eyes opened, and he found the strength to smile. “Better, isn't it? Things will get better.” His chest hurt so bad he swore something ripped it open. “You'll get better. Don't be scared. Let yourself drift until you're ready to come back.”
Lost green eyes stared into his. He lowered her hair beneath the water, dipping to whisper in her ear.
“I have a new plan. This one will work. You're going home.” No reaction. “I know you don't believe me because I said this so many times, but this one is real. It's real, Kira. You're going home with your mom.”
Holding her against himself with one hand, he lathered her hair with shampoo with the other. The blood was so thick. It kept rushing from her hair. Finally, he felt the silky strands against his fingers, each piece so fine.
He cupped his hands over her forehead to keep the soapy water from rushing into her eyes and rinsed her hair.
How much of this was his mother's blood turning the water red?
Kira clutched his forearm with her strongest grip yet. She turned her cheek against his arm, speaking so much more than words might convey. After all this, she didn't hate him. Still needed him.
Why?
The anger tried to overcome him. What had to happen for Kira to finally run far away from him? He lifted one of her hands and wiped the lines of her palms where the blood clung most stubbornly. Her arms next. The nape of her neck.
He hated the blood covering her skin. Hated the pain making her tremble. There was nothing between them in this moment. The Phaedra destroyed everything, and they were left clinging to whatever remained of themselves.
For years, he tried not to think about her. But it wasn't that familiar fight he wrestled with now. It was something much deeper.
When Zayne first met Kira, he thought she looked so beautiful and unbreakable.
Her defiance ran deeper than anger, stronger than rebellion.
From the beginning, he knew not to linger on her pouty lips, or her willowy curves, or her softness and warmth.
But when he took off his mask and kissed her, he savored all that he had spent the night avoiding.
Toying with her to hear her gasp. Worshipping her tongue with his own.
Learning how to make her arch into him just right.
And then he left her behind.
Even though he continued protecting her, he also protected them from each other with the space.
Since she came back into his life, he dedicated himself to that distance, despite repeated failings.
But Zayne cared for her so much. Holding her while she was broken destroyed any distance.
This was much stronger than wanting to kiss her, or trying not to remember, or not letting her spirit pull him in.
Kira held his entire heart in her trembling hands.
She held his past and future. Held his strength and weakness. His devotion.
Held the unnamed and the hidden. All he tried in vain to forbid.
There was nothing he wouldn't give to erase this blood from her body and soul and heal her pain. And there was no one on the planet he wouldn't sacrifice for her.
He rubbed blood off her smooth arm, knowing what he kept pretending he didn't know. Even if he refused to think about it, that didn't change what Kira meant to him.
He was fucked.