Chapter Eighteen
Feralyn
Unmoving, rooted, his gaze so steady it was locked in, he stared. “Can’t think of a better reason.”
My heart pumped a single, deafening-but-muted slow-motion double beat that echoed in my head like an underwater sonic boom.
Then my entire world stilled, reducing to a solitary focal point.
Gray-blue eyes, dirty-blond hair, hard-angled jaw.
Warfighter.
Assaulter.
My stepbrother.
“Helios,” I whispered.
“Don’t fucking go there,” he warned, scooping up another bite of the cloyingly sweet parfait. “Eat, Haven.”
The memory surfaced.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Ares,” Helios yelled. “Do your goddamn dishes. Don’t leave sticky ice cream shit all over the counter!”
Shoving off the couch, careful of my bowl of vanilla ice cream with caramel syrup and sprinkles, I hurried into the kitchen. “Hey!” I pushed past Ares. “Don’t yell at him!”
“Feralyn.” Ares’s hand landed on my shoulder. “It’s okay.”
I shrugged off Ares. “No, it’s not.” I may be a bunch of years younger than both of them, but Helios was being mean, and he’d only gotten meaner. “That’s not fair!” I yelled at Helios like he’d yelled at Ares. “You leave dishes out all the time.”
“What are you?” Helios glared at me. “The fair-fucking-haven police?” He jerked his arm out, waving his hand at the mess on the counter. “Look around, Haven. There’s no fucking maid here. Not even your freeloading sperm donor sticks around this dump.”
“Shut up!” I yelled.
“Helios,” Ares snapped.
“Both of you need to clue the fuck in. I’m the only goddamn thing standing between us and Child Protective Services. You two want to keep sleeping under this roof, THEN CLEAN UP YOUR SHIT.” He stormed out of the kitchen.
A second later, the front door slammed shut and tires squealed in the driveway.
Breathing heavy, Ares looked at me. “It’s okay.”
I looked at the melted drips of ice cream on the kitchen counter, and my eyes got blurry. “What does haven mean?” Helios had never called me names before. He used bad words all the time, but he didn’t call me them.
Ares didn’t answer.
I looked up at him as tears fell down my face. “It’s bad, huh?” Helios had said other bad words I didn’t understand, but he didn’t call me those names.
Grasping my shoulder again, Ares leaned down so his face was close to mine. “It’s not bad. No one’s going to take us away or call CPS. Your dad and our mom will be back from Costa Rica next week. We just don’t tell anyone that, remember?”
I didn’t care about them being away again. They were always gone. I wanted to know what Helios meant. “What’s a haven?”
Ares took one of his deep breaths. Then he straightened up and looked past me as he grabbed a sponge. “A refuge.”
I didn’t know what a refuge was either, but it didn’t sound good.
I looked at the grown version of Helios, the Delta Force operator who still swore like it was a competitive sport. “You’ve been calling me Haven.”
“Always call you that.”
No, he didn’t. “You didn’t mean refuge when you nicknamed me.”
His smirk, the one that tipped the side of his mouth and made him look both menacing and mischievous, eased some of the tension lines around his eyes. “Someone’s feeling better.”
The food had helped soak up some of the grogginess from the pain medication, and my ribs hurt slightly less while I was sitting more upright. “You named me that as an insult.”
Letting out a deep inhale, dropping the spoon on the tray, Helios leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his now-shaven jaw as he scanned the room and glanced toward the door.
Then his gaze met mine. “I was angry about a lot of shit back then. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I’m not going to apologize for that nickname, Feralyn. Not now.”
My heart skipped through an erratic beat, and his gaze cut to the machine with the digital readout that was next to my bed.
“Confession time’s over. You need to rest.” Helios pushed the tray table away and covered what was left of the plate of food with a metal dome. “You want to stay upright or go back to being reclined?”
“I want a shower.” A tremor wracked my body as I remembered him telling the doctor that he, not the nurse, would help me.
“I can do it myself.” I didn’t know if I could or not.
I didn’t even know if I could get out of this bed on my own.
The thought of standing up, let alone walking, terrified me.
The pain that would surely induce terrified me.
But the grime that was all over my body, the fear that I wouldn’t ever be able to wash it off, that scared me more.
“You heard the doc. After your scans.” Helios placed a pillow on my chest, then reached for the controls on the side of my bed. “Leaning you back. Hold that pillow against your ribs as I adjust the bed. It’ll help with the pain.”
I reached for his hand, but this time, I did it slower and didn’t lift my arm as high. “Stop.”
Immediately going still, like some internal switch for movement had been turned to Off, his hulking body and every hardened muscle froze. But his gaze cut from my hand on his to my eyes. Expression locked, he didn’t say anything.
For a moment, neither did I.
I didn’t know this version of him.
I was realizing I didn’t know a lot about him.
Most of all, I didn’t know how he knew that holding a pillow to your chest helped with the pain.
I asked. “Have you had broken ribs?” He’d never once mentioned a single injury, and I’d woken up every day since he’d left for boot camp and diligently packed away the fear that he might not ever come home.
Same as I packed that fear away for Ares.
But now, as I stared up at Helios, at the years of war in his eyes, at how it looked both the same and wholly different in Ares’s eyes, I realized how horribly na?ve I’d been.
Broken ribs would be a minor injury, relatively speaking, to a Delta Force operator.
And not coming home wouldn’t be close to the worst fate a warfighter could endure.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“For what?”
I’d been more than disrespectful. “Thank you for your service.” I’d never told him that.
Darkness fell over his expression. “Don’t, Haven.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t fucking pull that shit with me. You’re laid up in a hospital.” His voice turned lethally quiet. “Your 4Runner was T-boned, and you were kidnapped.” His right hand fisted. “You were beaten and tortured by fucking terrorists.” He leaned in. “I’m no goddamn hero.”
One word, and it wasn’t unexpected, I’d thought it myself, but fear reared up and coated my pain. “You said they were traffickers.” I’d heard him say that. I knew I had. I wanted to think that because terrorists was somehow more frightening.
Helios’s nostrils flared, and barely controlled rage bled out. “They were a trafficking cell that funded motherfucking ISIS, Feralyn.”
My shocked gasp ripped through me with blinding pain as the door opened.
The male nurse walked in with a small cup. “Per doctor’s orders, I have some oral pain medication for you, Mrs. Johnston.”
Helios grabbed the cup from the nurse with one hand, the ginger ale with the other, and tipped the cup up against my lips. “Swallow,” he ordered.
I opened my mouth.
Two pills fell in.
A straw was shoved between my lips.
I drank fear.