When I’m covered, he turns away and paces across the room, shaking his hands as if to dispel the fury radiating from every line of his body. Yet, one hand clenches into a fist, almost on its own, it seems like. He swings his fist toward the wall as if to smash a hole in the wall, but pulls back at the last moment, touching his knuckles to the wall in an effigy of a punch.
“I hope you understand I’m not angry at you, Naomi,” he murmurs.
I can’t summon words. The paralysis is slowly fading, but I’m still caught up in the grip of the panic.
He turns back to me, comes to stand in front of me. He takes both of my small hands in his large ones. “I’m sorry I walked in on you.” His green eyes pierce mine; he’s waiting for my reply.
“It—it’s okay, Silas.” It comes in a ragged whisper.
“It’s not. I should have knocked.” He lets out a sigh. “I keep fucking this up with you. I just…I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Why are you angry?” I look down at my hands, clasped gently in his.
The touch of his skin is like electricity. I should be panicking at being touched by him, but I’m not. If anything, the gentility in the way he touches me is comforting.
“I’m not angry.”
It seems like he’s angry, but I can’t bring myself to argue with him. I also can’t decide what to say, so I end up just staring up at him.
My goodness, he’s handsome. The green of his eyes is mesmerizing, contrasting with the copper of his hair. His jawline is rugged and powerful, sharp. His lips are full and soft-looking.
He meets my awkward stare and seems to misinterpret it as an accusation of disbelief. “It’s not anger, Naomi, and it’s not directed at you.”
“I don’t understand. You almost punched the wall.”
He shakes his head, letting go of my hands to scrub his fingers through his hair. “Pissed off is just kind of my default setting, I guess. Most of the shit I feel tends to end up looking like anger even if it’s not.”
“Why are you so angry all the time?” The question, intrusive and probing, pops out of me unbidden. I drop my eyes and step back, chin dropping to my chest as instinctual worry takes over. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“You’re allowed to ask me questions, Naomi. I’m not gonna get angry at you for asking me shit.” He stretches out on a bed—my bed; I find myself, unexpectedly, sitting on the edge of the bed near his feet. “Life, that’s why I’m angry all the time. Life has just taught me to be angry.” He looks at me thoughtfully. “I’m sure you can understand that.”
“I’m not angry,” I tell him, “I’m afraid.”
“Fear tends to manifest as anger, especially in men,” he says.
“What areyouafraid of?” Where is this curiosity coming from? Where is the bravery coming from to ask this big, strong man with very clear evidence that he’s a killer?
He doesn’t answer right away. “Failure. Seeing innocent people get hurt when I could prevent it.” A long pause. “Letting anyone get close enough to me to break my heart.”
I hear“again”in his tone, even if he doesn’t actually say it.
“You’ve been hurt.” I search his eyes, his face, and see a flash of something cross his features—something dark and complex.
“Yes.” A beat. “And you? What are you afraid of?”
“My father. Jerry.” I take my eyes from his, fiddling anxiously with the edges of the robe. “Never being free of them.”
I look at him again. Something about him sets me at ease.
I find the courage to speak another truth. “I’m afraid you’ll…that you’ll…that you won’t want to help me anymore. That I’ll have to go back.”
His eyes flash with ferocity, twin green flames in his sun-tanned skin. He sits up and moves to the edge of the bed beside me. Moving slowly, he gathers my hands in his. “Look at me, please.”
I lift my eyes to his.
“That will never, ever happen,” he says. One of his hands lifts, drifts toward my face. Tucks a damp strand of hair behind my ear; my whole being trembles at the tender touch…but not with fear. “I swear on my mother’s soul that neither your father nor Jerry nor anyone else will ever hurt you again.”
“You can’t promise that,” I whisper.
