by Elodie Colt
“Okay,” I answered in surrender, not wanting to fight him this time and therefore add to his anger. “What about Lauren? Where will she stay?”
“I don’t know if Jimmy has a room left. I can check—” Chris started, but Lauren interrupted him.
“I’ll stay with Haylie,” Lauren interjected and threw a questioning glance my way. “If it’s okay with you,” she nearly pleaded, and I gave her a weak smile.
“Of course. I wouldn’t want you to stay anywhere else.”
“Let us tend to you first. I’ll take you to Haylie’s room later when Sarah is finished,” Chris explained, and Lauren nodded.
I sighed in relief when we entered my room, and my eyes fell on the bed waiting for me. I just wanted to snuggle under the blankets and drift off into a dreamless sleep for the next twenty-four hours.
Dylan eased me down so gently, one might think I was made of porcelain, but a sharp pain on my left side made me hiss through my teeth.
“What is it?” Dylan asked in alarm.
“I don’t know. Probably just a big bruise,” I winced when the pain returned after taking another breath. I hadn’t noticed it the entire time Dylan carried me.
“Let me see,” Sarah exclaimed and pushed Dylan out of the way. She unzipped my sweater, and put two fingers gently to my side. I moaned when she touched the tender spots. “You’ve got a few broken ribs. That might take some time,” Sarah explained with a frown.
“It… it must have happened during the landing,” Dylan muttered, suddenly panicked. This was a side of him I’d never seen before. “I’m so sorry, I tried to—”
“Dylan!” I shot back at him in disbelief and grabbed his hand, barely able to get a hold on it without twisting my body into a position my ribs wouldn’t let me do.
He’d come to save me, had fought for me, and then he’d done what was needed to get me out of my uncontrollable rage, putting his life in danger by blindly jumping out of a building. It was a miracle we were still alive, and he was apologizing because he couldn’t avoid me getting a few broken bones?
I gripped his hand tightly, giving him an intense gaze that would hopefully convey everything I felt right at that moment—how thankful I was he’d saved Lauren, how much he must have had to go through to find us, how sorry I was for being the one to drag us into this mess in the first place. Dylan wasn’t a man of many words, so hopefully, he’d get the message this way.
His eyes were glued to mine while he was trying to decipher my expression, looking for answers on my face. Then, he squeezed my hand once and nodded, telling me he understood, and I gave him a weak smile in return.
“You,” Sarah gestured at Dylan, “are preventing me from doing my work. Get out of here, I need to concentrate. And call Jimmy. He wants to know what happened.” Dylan groaned in response before he left, without doubt dreading the upcoming conversation with the compound leader.
Sarah kneeled by the bed and put both hands over my injuries. At first, nothing happened, but then tentacles of heat formed and snaked through my system, and I clenched my teeth, trying hard not to jerk away.
Sarah had her eyes closed in concentration. Minutes passed, and my pulse accelerated as the pain grew, making it feel as if I had been stabbed with a blade that came straight from the forge. My breathing became harsher as I gripped the blanket underneath me to hold on.
Just when I thought I couldn’t take anymore, a nauseating crack echoed through the room. It vibrated through my ribcage, and this time, I couldn’t hold back the outcry erupting. It was more the sickening feeling of the bone mending itself together rather than the pain making me flinch and writhe.
Then, without time to fully recover, the second bone fused together, again making me scream out. God, this was awful. And just as I wanted to take a breather, a third bone snapped back into place. I couldn’t refrain from cursing like a drunken sailor, my cries most likely grating on every Catcher ear within the compound and above.
Sarah huffed out in relief. “It’s done.”
“Thank God,” I mumbled, still short of breath.
“I need to remove the shards,” Sarah informed me and went to my bathroom in search of the first-aid kit. “Take off your shirt.”
I did as I was told, which was easier said than done with so many shards embedded in my arms. Lying back on the bed, I let Sarah pull out the pieces of glass with tweezers. For a few minutes, neither of us spoke.
“You’re not going to bombard me with questions about what happened?”
Sarah smiled, not taking her eyes off a shard stuck in my upper arm. “I’m dying to know, but Jimmy wants you to rest. There will be a meeting tomorrow. He’s furious with you, I should warn you.”
I sighed. “I figured that already.” I wasn’t looking forward to standing up to Jimmy to justify my actions. He was right to be angry, but I wasn’t taking any chances when it came to Lauren.
“So, I assume Dylan played the hero for you again?” Sarah wanted to know.
I gave her a dry laugh. “You can say that. He was… amazing. Seriously, that man is a mystery to me,” I mumbled more to myself.
“Really? I think he’s an open book,” Sarah countered with a frown. Then she added in a softer voice, “He cares a lot about you.”
“I suppose he does, I just don’t understand why. He loathes me. Or at least, he did. I’m not so sure anymore. I have no idea where we stand.”
“Yeah, that’s what he wants everyone to think, but we all know it’s not true.”
I frowned, averting my gaze from the ceiling to look at Sarah. “Why do you think that?”
Sarah smiled again when she started to clean up my cuts with a pad and antiseptic. “Don’t be so blind, Haylie. He may have a hard shell, but you got to his soft core. You are the only one who broke through since Jenna.”
“Hmm,” was all I could say.
Maybe Sarah was right. I knew Dylan cared for me. His willingness to train me and his sacrifices whenever it came down to my safety were proof. But was it developing into more? Was that the reason Dylan lost it after he’d witnessed Chris and me kissing? Was he jealous? He hadn’t shown me any signs he wanted more. Maybe he didn’t know how.
Or maybe I was interpreting things again, and he acted this way because he felt it was his duty to do so.
This time, Sarah’s healing was bearable. Her power flowed over the surface of my skin, heating it only for a short time, and the cuts quickly vanished.
“Okay, I’m done.”
“Thanks. Are you okay? The healing must have drained you,” I asked in concern.
“I’m fine. See it like this… you’re my dummy to train on now and then. Just imagine how powerful I could be in a year,” Sarah exclaimed, causing me to laugh for the first time that day.
~~~
When I awoke, I wondered how late it was—you never knew inside the compound, as there were no windows. The indirect lights hidden behind the walls were the only source of illumination. I was desperate to drift off into a deep sleep again—everything not to face Jimmy and the others today.
I rolled over under the blankets when my leg came upon… another leg. This caused my eyes to snap open, only to see a mass of black hair nestled beside me.
Lauren. Thank God—I’d already feared it was Dylan. I hadn’t heard Lauren come into my room last night. I must have been too exhausted to notice anything else. Lauren being here with me immediately lightened my mood. I was so relieved Lauren was unharmed and safe.
“Are you finished staring at my Adonis body?” Lauren mumbled groggily, her eyes still shut tight.
I chuckled. “Is there anything you don’t notice?”
Lauren peeked through her sleepy eyes and smiled. “No, and you better keep remembering that.”
“How are you?” I asked, worried.
“Good. Not a scratch left. A Regenerator fixed me.” Her expression switched to confusion. “Wow, never thought I’d ever say that,” she muttered as an afterthought.
“All this must be fucking confusing for you. I’d tell you, but I don’t know how much I’m allowed to reveal.”
“Chris talked to Jimmy last night, and he wants me to join the meeting today. He already told me there are… people with abilities. Although I already figured that much after last time.”
I just nodded absently. “Lauren, I’m so sorry about what happened. I never intended for you to get involved. I can’t believe they used you to get to me...” My voice faded to a barely audible whisper at the end. It was painful to even think about what could have happened to her.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
I snorted. How often had I heard those words before? “I’m still the cause,” I countered and propped myself up on my elbow. “Without me, you wouldn’t have been attacked in the first place.”
“Without you,” Lauren emphasized, putting a hand on my shoulder, “I wouldn’t have had a friend to stand by me when my parents left me alone. You were there for me, I will never forget that.”
“You were there for me, too, when she died…”
Lauren smiled. “Well, I guess we’re even, then.”
I smiled back, despite the uncomfortable feeling brewing in my stomach. Lauren was safe here for the moment, but for how long?
“You should go take a shower before the meeting. You look like a zombie,” Lauren muttered, causing me to glance down at my body. I was just in my underwear, and my injuries were long gone, but there was dried blood all over my skin and hair tips.
As I let the hot water soothe the tension in my muscles, my mind wandered back to Dylan, and what he’d done for me. I owed him big. Without him, Lauren would probably be dead, and I somewhere out there with a bunch of evil Hunters doing only God knows what to me. I decided to talk to him before the meeting and set things straight between us.
“Hey, are you okay for a minute without me? I need to sort out a few things,” I said, shoving a clean, gray tank top over my head.
“Do these things involve a certain hot-as-hell life saver next door?” Lauren asked with a nonchalant look, teasing me.
“It concerns Dylan, yes,” I corrected her while putting the clip in my hair.
“Oh, come on, honey. Stop pretending not to notice. He’s the incarnation of sexiness, and he carried you the entire way back to your room, how hot is that?”
“I never said he wasn’t hot. I’m not blind.”
“So? What’s preventing you from showing him how hot you can be?”
I shook my head, scratching my temple. “You have no idea how freaking complicated things are between us.”
“Why don’t you un-complicate it, then?” she asked, as if it was as simple as that.
“It’s not that easy, Lauren. Dylan and I… we somehow have a past, although we’ve never met before. This will always stand between us.”
Lauren rolled her eyes in my peripheral vision. “Excuses. Don’t dwell on the past. It’s not worth it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Lauren was my best friend, and I could tell her everything, but this time, she couldn’t possibly understand. If she only knew that technically, it was not me who struggled with keeping the past behind…
I left my room and stopped in front of the next door, taking a deep breath to settle my nerves. Somehow, Dylan always managed to make me edgy. I never knew what kind of man I was going to face. The kind, caring one who wanted to protect me and would do everything in his power to keep me safe? The dominating, imperious commander who desperately wanted to keep control? Or the threatening, impulsive Fighter on his mission to seek revenge and justice?
Lifting my hand, I knocked before my wits left me. A second later, the door opened, and Dylan appeared in the doorframe.
Shirtless.
With his washed-out jeans hanging low on his hips and drops of water dripping from his damp hair over his sun-kissed shoulders, the sight took me completely off guard, and I swear I forgot my name for a second.
Damn, his body was marvelous. The smoothly carved curves of his chest blended in perfectly with his broad shoulders. The skin there looked so soft, I was desperate to put my lips there and lick a path upward to his corded neck. A bandage covered the spot where a shard of glass had stuck, and a few faint bruises dotted his skin. Of course, he wouldn’t let a Regenerator heal his injuries.
I blinked and quickly averted my eyes before his roguish good looks could dazzle me any longer. Shit, there was no way he hadn’t noticed.
“Um, sorry, I didn’t know you… I mean… I can come back later, if…”
Was there a mischievous smile forming on his lips? Since when was Dylan the cocky one? As if he knew what was distracting me, he placed one hand on top of the door, stretching his torso further, and leaned his hips against the doorframe. His biceps and abs moved in sync, giving me a full view of his masculine perfection.
“I was just taking a shower. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I just wanted to talk you. Privately,” I added. I didn’t want to go through the conversation with me standing in the hallway, and Dylan leaning half naked opposite me.
He nodded and swung the door open, inviting me in. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t think it necessary to remove the hand from the door’s upper edge, giving me no other option than to duck in between to get inside. My bare shoulder brushed against his chest, and it felt like I imagined—velvet skin over steel-hard muscles. I nearly whimpered as a breath hitched in my throat, close to suffocating me.
Was he doing this on purpose? Dylan was by no means an angel. He was well aware of the effect he had on women—I’d witnessed them vying for his attention in Hell’s Trial—and I was certain he took this advantage whenever he got the chance.
When I finally made it through the door safely and gained some distance from his sinfully beautiful body, I took in my surroundings. Dylan’s room was slightly different than mine. While mine was painted in natural colors giving it a warm feel, his was plain black and white. There was no decoration on the only shelf to my left except for one thing immediately catching my interest.
It was a picture held in a metal frame showing Dylan and a girl with fiery red hair flowing around her like a wavy halo of fire. Gathering from the trees and gravestones in the background, the picture was taken in the cemetery behind the compound. His arm was draped around her shoulders, and they were both laughing at the camera. They were happy. Dylan looked younger and more carefree. He was well built but not as muscled as now. There was no sign of his harsh features or the long scar cutting sharply through his eyebrow. The sight nearly broke my heart.
“That was Jenna,” Dylan confirmed what I already suspected, and I reached out to take the picture into my hands.
“She’s so beautiful.”
The girl in the picture was breathtaking. Her shiny red hair made a stark contrast to her pale skin, and her face looked as if created from smooth marble.
“Yes, she was.” Dylan’s voice was low, and suddenly, he was standing closer than before. His hot breath caressed the skin on my shoulder, and the emotions he expressed with those words touched me deeply. For a second, I thought he was talking about me and not the girl in the picture.
“I have the same eyes,” I said in awe and looked a little closer.
I knew all Naturals had the same eyes, but never having looked into the eyes of another Natural, it shocked me when I noticed the similarity now staring back at me. Yes, Shawna and my mother had the same eyes, but back then, I couldn’t yet make out the individual nuances like a grown-up Roe could.
“Close. Yours are more luminous with a little more orange.”
I spun around to face him. I didn’t know why, but it suddenly felt as if we were trapped in a very intimate situation. As if on cue, his eyes latched onto mine, his lingering gaze wandering from left to right and back again, studying my eye color with enough intensity to make me blush.
To me, the eyes looked the same. How much time had he invested in eliciting the differen
ces between Jenna’s and mine? A little more luminous? More orange? I would have to check later.
“Were you two involved with each other?” I had to ask. The question had been gnawing on my mind ever since Chris told me about Dylan’s past, and the reasons he’d become a different person after Jenna’s death. For a second, I feared Dylan would reject, but instead, he answered me honestly.
“No. We tried, but it didn’t work out. I loved her like a sister.”
A pang of relief hit me. It was confusing enough to know he was reminded of Jenna whenever he looked at me. It would have been even harder for him if Jenna had been his one and only love.
“You came to talk to me?” Dylan reminded me after clearing his throat, and I put the picture back on the shelf, getting the hint that Dylan wanted to change the subject.
He turned to close the door, and that was when I spotted the massive tattoo on his toned back. It took my breath away, it was that beautiful. No, that was probably not the right word. It was dark and dangerous—a gorgeous piece of art consisting of black swirls, lines, and edges hugging his muscles and shadowing his skin in all the right places. I stuffed my hands into my jeans pockets to stop my fingers from reaching out and touching the black vines.
“Yes, I…” I started before he caught me again staring at him, open mouthed. Dylan had a talent for throwing me off guard. “I wanted to thank you for getting Lauren out of there. I guess I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own,” I confessed.
Dylan cut the distance between us in a few strides and stopped a foot in front of me, his upper body still as naked as nature had created it. Couldn’t he at least have mercy on my weak self and put on a shirt?
“I wanted to get you out of there,” he corrected me in a firm tone, and again I lifted my eyes in surprise. When did he become so honest and direct with me? He combed a hand through his hair as if embarrassed for letting his guard down like that. “What the hell were you thinking, Haylie?”
I dropped my head. “Listen, I know you’re angry with me, and I understand, but I didn’t come here for a lecture. I’m sure Jimmy’s will suffice for the next months. I just wanted you to know I’m thankful for—”