Ignited (25 page)

He stared at me for a long, long time before he took a deep relenting breath. “I had a prophet that I trusted watch out for you. I asked her to let me know if she saw anything bad happen to you. I got two calls. The first one came that night I got you out of that foster home when you were eleven. The second was the night of the car accident.”

My heart pounded and I feared that, with his better hearing, he would notice. But I needed to know. “The Kala don’t normally do that, do they?”

He hesitated. “No.”

He had broken the rules for me. “So why did you?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured softly.

“You’re not the type of person to do something without knowing why you’re doing it.”

He looked away with a sigh.

“Why did you?” I pressed.

“Because you didn’t have anyone else,” he said quickly, with a shrug, like it was no big deal.

I lifted my eyebrows. What kind of explanation was that? 

He rolled his head, knowing that answer wasn’t good enough to get me off his back. He tried again. “I bet you didn’t know that night was my first real mission.”

The night my family was murdered? That was news to me. “Really?”

“They thought a human rescue mission would be an easy way to break me in.” I heard the irony in his voice.

“It wasn’t?”

“No.” He smiled. “I walked away with a little ankle biter leaching off of me. Fourteen years later, she’s still here.”

I jabbed him in the ribs, hard. His grin grew.

“Tell me what happened that night,” I said.

Nathan narrowed his eyes as he tried to dig up the memory. “We got there too late,” he said. “We took out the intruders, did a quick sweep of the house, but didn’t find anyone alive.” He paused. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

I nodded. It wasn’t a question of whether I wanted to hear it or not. I
needed
to hear it.

He sighed and continued, “We knew how many victims there should have been. We found all but one. You. I went to check the kitchen a second time, looking for anything we might have missed, and I heard this pathetic little whimper.” His lips tipped into a smile as he remembered. “I opened the pantry door and there you were, scared to death. I had to do a lot of coaxing, but once I got you out, you grabbed onto me and wouldn’t let go.”

I mirrored the smile on his face, listening intently to the details I had forgotten.

“One of the girls tried to take you,” he continued, “but you clasped your arms around my neck and screamed hysterically. You wouldn’t go with anyone else.” He met my eyes with a dismissive shrug. “I guess I was the first one you saw, when you knew you were going to be okay, and felt safe with me. I don’t know.”

I bit my lip. This was the one part of that night I remembered vividly. “That wasn’t why.”

“Then what was it?”

“Your eyes.”

Nathan wrinkled his brow quizzically.

Oh, boy, here comes severe embarrassment.
I sighed and tipped my head back, staring at the ceiling to avoid meeting the eyes I was referring to. “They were so blue and...”
Beautiful
, I thought, but I didn’t dare say that. What I was about to admit to was mortifying enough. I said it in a rush, “I thought you were my guardian angel.”

There. I said it. I kept my eyes raised for several seconds before I found the courage to look at him again. His eyes were on me, soft and...amused? Maybe flattered? Yet again, I had managed to render him speechless. My cheeks reddened with each silent second that ticked by. Finally, he offered a shy smile that only made it worse.

I was desperate to change the subject and swing the focus back on him, and what he was avoiding. “That doesn’t really explain why you kept tabs on me.”

“Sure it does,” he said like the answer was obvious. “I never forgot that night. I kept thinking about you, about leaving you like we did at that orphanage, wondering if you were okay, and I just had to check up on you...” He trailed off with a sheepish shrug.

What wasn’t he saying? He kept tabs on me to make sure I was okay...because he cared? Was that what he was so afraid to admit? Was it really that simple?

In my heart I knew the answer was yes. That was it.

There was no hidden agenda. He wasn’t on some secret mission. None of it had been a coincidence. He had been there, ensuring my well-being, all along. And he had done it all because he cared about me. Even if he hadn’t actually said the words, I knew it to be true. The epiphany brought a tiny smile to my face and sent my pulse into overdrive.

“You did it all from a distance?” I asked, my voice unable to rise above a whisper.

“At first. You changed foster homes a lot. It was hard to keep up sometimes.”

“Is that why you took me to Gran?”

His eyes clouded as he dove into unwelcome memories. “That night...” He didn’t have to say it. I knew exactly the night he was referring to. “I didn’t know if I’d make it in time. That’s when I decided to take you to Gran. I knew you’d have a better life there, it would be easier to check up on you and get to you faster if I had to.”

My experiences in foster care were something else my brain kept me sheltered from, but one thing I remembered clearly was the night Nathan had come for me when I was eleven. I had always wondered if my foster father would have gone through with his threat. Fortunately, Nathan had arrived before I found out. But then, for him to show up and whisk me away to a new life without a trace left behind, he must have been told something horrible had happened to me.

“What did the prophet see that night?” I asked.

Nathan’s eyes were dark when they lowered to mine. “You don’t want to know. I wish I didn’t know.”

“But it didn’t happen.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to tell you about it. You’re better off not knowing.” He brushed a stray hair off my forehead. My breath caught from the touch, but he didn’t notice. He didn’t even seem to realize what he had done. Either that or he wasn’t as affected by it as I was.

“Like the night of the car accident?” Did he think I was better off not knowing the truth—that he had not only saved my life, but brought me back to life?

Nathan rolled his eyes shut again. Clearly, he wasn’t thrilled to be reliving all my near death experiencers. “What about it?” 

“You didn’t just pull me from the car. I was dead. You brought me back.” He didn’t answer, but then he didn’t have to. I knew what I had seen in that dream had been real. All of it. “I have nightmares about it all the time,” I continued. “In one of them, I wasn’t me. I was watching from the outside like it was a movie. I saw everything that I never knew happened.”

Like when you kind of kissed me...

“It could have been just a dream, a figment of your imagination,” he suggested.

“Was it?”

He had fallen right into that trap and he frowned down at me when he realized it. “No,” he finally said. “I thought I was too late. It was the longest five minutes of my life trying to get you back.”

“And you did.” My eyes drifted to his lips as I smiled up at him. When I realized that I was imagining what it would be like to feel them on mine, I blushed and peeled my gaze away. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was trying to protect you.”

I wrinkled my brow. I didn’t get it. Protect me from what? The truth?

“That was the real reason I couldn’t go back for Lauren, why I let her die.” He hesitated as my breathing faltered, and I knew what he had been afraid to tell me. The guilt. He’d been sparing me from a guilt worse than what I already suffered. “I had to stay with you.”

One tear slipped free and I swatted it away with the back of my hand. Hearing the truth made me feel surprisingly liberated. With that lone tear, went the weight of the extra grief and guilt his revelation would have otherwise caused. Nathan didn’t know it was a good tear, and was looking down at me like he expected me to be mad with what he’d told me. I offered him a small smile.

“You’re okay?” he asked softly.

“I’m okay.” I paused, and my smile grew. “You know, Nathan, if you keep saving my life, I’m going to start thinking you might actually care about me a little.”

That got me a smile that only made his lips look even more kissable. “I can’t have you thinking that. I’ll lose my edge.”

“You already lost it,” I said and patted his chest apologetically. “You may be tough on the outside, but I know you’re a true softie at heart.”

He considered my words with a slow grin and finally gave a nod of acceptance. “Okay, but don’t tell anybody.”

“Our secret.” I flashed the Girl Scout’s pledge and rolled onto my side before I did or said something stupid. I was dangerously close to finding out if his lips felt as soft as they looked.

He slung an arm around me again. His other hand rested near my head, where he combed his fingers through my hair. I forced my breaths to steady, slowed the galloping in my chest, and pretended the meant-to-be-soothing gesture wasn’t slowly unhinging me. We were quiet for a long time as I fought to gain control of my body, the sound of our breaths all that reached my ears. I just started to drift off to sleep when his hand stopped, entangled in my hair.

“Kris?” 

My mouth dried and the word cracked in my throat. “Yeah?”

His hand started to move through my hair again, and he didn’t say what he had wanted to say. Instead, he said, “Goodnight.”

What are you holding back?
I wanted to ask, but settled on returning my own shaky, “Goodnight.”

Just as it seemed the walls between us had been torn down, there remained the presence of unspoken words between us. I wondered if I would ever really hear what he needed to say, and if it would be what I needed to hear?

Nathan shook me awake some time later. “They’re coming,” he told me when my eyes popped open.

For half a second, I forgot where I was and stared up at him dumbly. One look at the gray bricks over his shoulder, holding us hostage, brought it all back. I scurried to my feet and stood beside him against the back wall of the cell. Through the bars, I saw Lillian approach with the key, the three muscle men on her heels.

“I hope you slept well,” she said without an ounce of sincerity. She inserted the key, turned the lock with a loud click, and pointed to the muscle men with her orders, “You and you, hold him back. You, bring the girl.”

Nathan’s arm wrapped around me protectively, and he pulled me tight against his side. “Whatever you want, Lil, you can get it from me,” he called to Lillian.

The three Skotadi fanned out inside the cell. Two of them edged toward Nathan while the third held back, flanking us. Waiting.

“Unfortunately, it’s her I need,” Lillian responded.

Nathan’s eyes were fixed on the advancing Skotadi as he addressed Lillian. “What do you want with her?”

“Just some information. I promise I won’t hurt her.” That was the second time Lillian had said that she wouldn’t harm me, but after looking into her cold dark eyes, I didn’t have a whole lot of faith in that promise.

The two big guys were close now, and Nathan loosened his arm from around me. We both knew he was going to need both hands free for what was coming.

I waited for their move, but it was Nathan who struck first. One of them stepped within swinging range, and Nathan caught him with a right hook before he saw it coming. There wasn’t time for Nathan to land another before the second guy lunged for him.

The third Skotadi decided that was his opening to get me. I saw him coming, and ducked behind Nathan seconds before the Skotadi he was grappling with steamrolled him into the wall. The two of them blocked my pursuer. That didn’t stop the one with the bloody nose from grabbing me instead.

I reached for Nathan as I was hauled backwards by the waist. His hand clamped down on my arm and held onto me, even as the other two Skotadi slammed him to the wall, and pinned him there. His grip was so tight I was certain my shoulder would dislocate before he ever let go.   

With the appearance of Lillian at my side, I knew it was over.

She placed her hand over top of Nathan’s and pried him loose one finger at a time. He gritted his teeth as he desperately fought to hold on, but it was futile.

My eyes darted to his as my arm slipped out of his grasp, and I was yanked away from him. Lillian stood in the middle, looking pleased with herself, and shot Nathan a look I couldn’t see before she turned to follow me as I was dragged out of the cell. 

“Whatever they want, Kris, do it!” Nathan shouted to me as I was carried away. “Tell them what they want to know!”

“Oh, she will,” Lillian told him as she turned the key, locking Nathan in the cell with the two Skotadi. 

Even as I was lugged down the dark tunnel toward the unknown—which I assumed included some sort of painful torture—my concern was not for myself, but for Nathan and whether or not I would ever see him again. I assumed Lillian had locked the two Skotadi in there with him for a reason. Was it to hurt him? To kill him?