Chapter 37
“Wanderer, I know you don’t like me touching your hands, but I’m going to need to if we’re going to set them before the bones start growing back.”
I nod. I want to tell him that him touching me is the least of my worries at the moment.
On the other side of the cave where we’re hiding out for the night, Phoenix stares at the fire, and I stare at her, hoping for any distraction other than the Nomad’s milky blue eyes.
“Do you want a warning?”
I shake my head.
Pain rattles through me as the Nomad cracks the first finger back into place. Once again, my skin goes clammy, especially as he bandages the finger to keep it in place.
“I’m sorry, Wanderer,” says the Nomad, under his breath, not that Phoenix is listening. “I’ll be quick with the rest of them.”
And he is, though time seems to slow with each agonizing crack of bones.
When he’s done, his fingers release mine, hovering so that I feel their warmth and not the pain of their touch.
“I hate this,” he whispers, almost to himself.
I shoot him a questioning glance, though through the pain, it likely appears more like a grimace.
“Don’t think me selfless,” he says. “I hate them for the pain they caused you. For stealing your voice from you. But I hate it for me. I hate that they stole my looking glass into your mind. I—” He glances up at me, his blue eyes shuttered by his eyelashes.
“I wish I could hear your voice. Wish I could see your hands move the way they do. Even if they were telling me you hated me. I’d take it gladly. ”
A tear streams down my cheek as I watch him run his fingers up my forearms rather than stroking my hands. I glance to the other end of the cave, but Phoenix is laid out, asleep by the fire.
When I look back, the Nomad is staring at me with an intensity that has me wriggling.
“When you asked me about my childhood, I left out a rather significant detail. You see, when I was a child, I belonged to a nomadic tribe. We wandered the world in search of a home. A safe place. Our land was inhabited by…creatures. They were the apex predator, so we had to learn to be the same, or at least how to hide from them. My father was the chief, and since the creatures had impeccable hearing, the tribe was to remain quiet. In fact, my father banned any of the tribal members from having children.” He glances away.
“My mother found a way around that rule, but since I was a baby, I was—well, I was taught early not to cry. Not to make a sound. My father used to beat me—not because I’d disobeyed, but because he thought it vital that I learn to endure pain without making a sound.
It’s not the same, I know. But I—well, I suppose I know what it means to be crushed into silence.
“I—” He stares at me a long while, at the tear streaming down my cheek.
“I am a very bad man. What I’ve told you before hasn’t scratched the surface.
Whatever rumors you’ve heard about the Nomad—Wanderer, he is simply the facade I put on.
Not to seem more intimidating than I am, but to seem the lesser of the two evils inside of me.
When I told you that my mother killed me in the end, well, she had good reason.
But then, she found a way to bring me back.
And it turns out, I was even worse than the boy she had slain.
I’m not the monster from your nightmares, Wanderer. I’m the monster in the flesh.”
I should be afraid of him. Should keep my visions close, remember every time his touch has led to my demise.
Instead, all I can feel in his touch is tenderness. All I can hear in his voice is pleading.
I’ve always believed that the smallest action could change the course of the future, could change the outcome.
What if I’ve been playing it too small? What if the tiny moments never mattered at all, and that’s why the outcome has always been differing versions of the same event?
What if, if I want to change our ending, I have to change the middle?
And for the first time, I long to tell him the truth. That he is very much the monster of my nightmares. But that, in the light of day, I’m not so sure.
But I can’t move my hands. Can’t form a word on my lips. Can’t breathe a whisper of any of that.
So I simply cock my head to the side in question, and hope that the man before me carries on talking all night long.
The Nomad lets out a shaky laugh. “How do you do that? Say so much with those gorgeous eyes of yours?”
I smile, and the way the Nomad’s gaze lingers on my lips sends a shiver down my spine.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you earlier,” he whispers. “That was selfish too. I convinced myself it was for you, to give you a distraction. But I’m nothing if not a liar.”
I scoot forward, and the Nomad seems entranced.
He leans in, his lips lingering close to mine, when a voice clears from the corner.
“Not to disturb you two, but we have company,” says Phoenix.