Chapter 13 Mine #2
A flare of warmth appeared in those ocean eyes before he dropped my wrist and my gaze. “It’s just…something I need.”
“But why?” I pushed, wondering whether he’d admit it.
I couldn’t save my sister, but I can save you.
He shrugged. “Willful stupidity.”
Sighing, I left.
With Lucas’s information, the Defiance had gained a distinct advantage in the war. The rapid-fire wins meant things had begun to snowball in our favor, and the NAO’s response escalated the violence. The air thickened with the aura of an impending battle. A big one.
Perhaps it was finally ending. What would I even do if the end came? I couldn’t go back to a normal life after this. The scars ran too deep. If this war ever finished, I feared it would live on forever inside me, a mushroom cloud where my heart should be.
“Sophia?”
I startled, almost falling off my bed before turning toward the voice.
Devon stood in the doorway of my bedroom. He lifted a hand in apology. “Sorry. I said your name four times.”
I tried to smile. “Oh. It’s alright. I’m a little distracted.”
“I know. You want to come downstairs with me and Isaac?”
“No, thanks.” I settled deeper into my bed, flaunting my desire to stay put.
His tone gentled, turned coaxing. “Come on, Soph. It’ll be good for you.”
Would it? Maybe it would distract for a while, but the thoughts would inevitably return, and I’d be right where I started. Regardless, I had to meet Lucas in an hour.
“I’m good,” I said. “Have fun, though.”
He hesitated, but eventually nodded and shut the door.
Later that night, I stood in the back bedroom of the Evanston house, dripping in sweat.
“One wrong move could be the difference between life and death, Sophia,” Lucas said.
“I know.” I fanned my sweaty face, glaring at him.
“That sassy attitude isn’t going to save your ass from death or torture. Learn to protect yourself.”
“I’m trying!”
“You’re failing.”
His lectures had been annoying in the beginning, but they’d eventually torn apart my defenses.
His concern for my welfare established itself with increasing dominance as each week passed.
Every time I left the house, he gazed at me like he wanted to hide me under a blanket until the war was done.
I tried not to let it sway me in his favor, but anyone would develop a soft spot for a person who spent so much energy caring.
How had he wound up a Hunter? He never answered when I asked, choosing silence over lies, so I drilled him on NAO logic instead. Back against the wall, I sat beside him on the floor, gazing at the stars outside the window. “How do they justify their cruelty?”
“You have to be raised with the othering, I think. When it’s that deep, when it exists in everything you do, it has to come from something you learned as a child.”
“What kind of people teach their children to think this way?”
“The NAO was bred from a love of tradition and obedience to the norm. I mean, come on, Sophia. You know this. These people fear what’s different.
Humans don’t like change. Haynes preyed on all the right things at exactly the right time.
Loyalists want to live in a world where what benefits the majority dictates the rights of everyone.
They call it unity, but what they mean is hate.
There is us and there is them, and there is nothing in the middle. ”
I stared at his profile. The words came quickly to his lips, like he’d thought on it often. He always classified the NAO as they, separate from himself, as if he’d never been part of them at all.
“It’s crazy,” I said. “How are there so many of them?”
He laughed without humor. “If you recall, the NAO didn’t start out pushing a dictatorship. Commander Haynes took baby steps. His ultimate rise to power happened over the course of years, and now, they kill anyone who speaks out. Do you have any idea how many people are trapped out of fear?”
Like…him?
“They’re deranged, Sophia. I can’t fathom how they justify their treatment of women.
If you’re female, you must be meek, obedient, and ready to spread your legs.
You can’t travel on your own. Can’t hold your own job.
Can’t even exist without the permission of a man.
If you try, then you must be corrected.”
The deep furrow between his brow, the anger in his eyes—they gnawed at me, so I turned on my teasing tone. “What about me, Lucas? Do I need correction?”
He turned to look at me, his gaze raking over my face. “You just need a hairbrush.”
Over the next few weeks, the number of soldiers in the area tripled, and injuries increased.
Servicemen thanked me as I patched them up, only to greet me the next day with new injuries.
We took hold of a Hunter safe house at the end of July, and several injured Hunters wound up in our care.
We dealt with the hatred of many. Frequently, however, we received wary kindness.
Do you have any idea how many people are trapped out of fear?
My head throbbed. I spent a lot of time in my forest. Tall trees…warm rain…scent of cypress…
Lucas proved relentless during a heatwave. We struggled for hours, me throwing full-force punches while he pulled his. Trying to catch my breath, I braced my hands on my carpet-burned knees. “I have a theory you were sent to torture me slowly into madness.”
He snorted. “I’m the one suffering. It’s been, what, four months? The only change I see is the size of your hair. Does it have self-awareness? Can it see me?”
When I lifted my head to glare, his gaze darted down my loose shirt. I straightened as he jerked his head away. A tinge of red spread across his fair cheekbones, along with a self-mocking smirk. “This is why you wear a hoodie.”
“Mm-hmm. You try wearing one when it’s one hundred degrees outside.”
He pointedly lifted the hood of his sleeveless hoodie, dropping it over his head. It shadowed his face, but his eyes glimmered.
I shot him a scathing expression. “Okay. Can I have one with no sleeves then?”
“Maybe.” He crossed his arms. “If you’re a good girl.” A black bracer covered his right forearm, hiding the hate brands. He always wore it with short sleeves and annoying pangs of sympathy stirred in me. His hair was damp and curling from the sweat, stubble darkening his jaw.
Even in my thin undershirt, the house was stifling.
Sweat dripped down my temples and neck, and salted my lips.
My baby hairs curled around my face. Lucas wasn’t wrong about my hair.
In humidity, it tended to take on a life of its own; the curls expanding even in my topknot.
Self-consciousness attacked me as I dripped and frizzed, and he leaned against the wall, managing to remain poised despite the heat.
For the first time since meeting him, I became aware of him not as a Hunter or as my enemy, but as a man.
He looked good.
What?
No, he didn’t.
“They’re trying to find your headquarters,” he said.
My eyes widened. “Really?”
“They aren’t getting very far, from what I understand. Been looking on the other side of town.”
I sent him a flat stare, then rolled my eyes. “That’s spectacularly worthless information.”
He blinked, unmoved. “Crabby Sophia is not my favorite version of you.”
A slap of heat bloomed on both my cheeks. “I’m not crabby!”
His brow lifted. A bead of sweat from his temple made its way over his jaw and dripped down his throat.
I followed its progress. What would it feel like if I dragged my finger over the path it took?
Would his skin be soft? His stubble scratchy?
Would his Adam’s apple bob when I trailed my fingers over it?
“—is that fair?”
“Hmm?” I snapped to attention. “What was that?”
A pulse woke between my legs as my traitorous body decided it wanted things that I absolutely did not. It sickened me, this proof that he’d gotten under my skin.
“Hello?” He snapped his fingers in front of my face. Candlelight flashed on the gold ring around his pinky. “What is going on in there?”
The end of the world, apparently.
“I’m tired.”
He angled his head, all skeptical and leery. Shadows appeared under the planes of his cheekbones. The effect was…
The throb pounded.
And I hated myself.
Months—months!—I’d spent rolling around with him on this very carpet, and not once had it struck me that he was handsome. He was a scarred psychopath. A brutal murderer. Maybe—maybe—a rogue vigilante.
He wasn’t handsome.
He—
He was talking again. What had he said?
“Are you okay?” Exasperation sharpened his features. It should have been off-putting, but instead, it flipped the pole of his magnet. Where once I’d been repelled, now I was lured closer.
“I’m just tired!”
“Fine. Why don’t you go home before you black out, and Uncle Theo comes at me like a rabid dog?”
I sighed. “Please don’t call him Uncle Theo. He’d kill me if he knew I told you that.”
“Pretty sure he tried to kill you by sending you here to me.”
“I’m still alive, aren’t I?”
He huffed. “Only by the grace of some phenomenal luck.”
If I could have scorched him with my gaze alone, I would have done it.
His head jerked back. “Damn, girl. What th’fuck did I do to you?”
Hatred burned in my chest—for him, for myself, for this ache low in my belly that shouldn’t belong to him, but somehow did. “You started by existing, and it’s only gotten worse from there.”
“I did warn you that would be the case.”
“Do you have to be so—so—” I threw my arms up.
Face a mask of bewilderment, he raised his brows. “So what?”
“Argh!” I marched from the room.
He followed me. “Did you just stomp away like a child?”
I whirled on him, my voice a high-pitched screech. “Do you have a death wish?”
He looked at me like I was stupid. “Yes, obviously.”
That stopped me in my tracks. “Wait. You do?”
He rolled his eyes. A particularly stubborn curl flung itself above his left eyebrow.
My fury exploded as I fought the desire to touch it. “You’re impossible!”
“I’m not the one making zero sense.”