Ryder nodded. “That’s why I had them cut my hair there. I knew you’d see her.”
I tilted my head and admired Ryder for a moment. A gentle smile crept across my face. I’d seriously underestimated him. For a pacifist, he was certainly cunning. He caught my sideways glance and smiled back.
“What?”
I looked away, staring off into the trees around us. “I’m impressed at what you’ve gotten done. All I did was make a table and harvest some lettuce seeds.”
“Well, brace yourself because there’s more. But first,” he slipped his pack from his shoulders, “I have gifts.”
The whirring zipper grated against the chirps and rustle of the forest. I watched Ryder with a fervent curiosity.
“Close your eyes and hold out your hand.”
Trust didn’t come easy for me. I took a moment to weigh my options before I gave in. His fingers slipped over my palm. My eyes fluttered open. A grin tickled at the corners of his mouth.
“I said closed, Huckleberry, or I’m keeping everything for myself.”
Drawing in a breath, I closed my eyes and extended my hands. Was his gift a kiss? That question burned at the back of my mind before changing to a request and then desire. Weight in my hands answered my question and my eyes opened.
Soap.
A slim, sweet-smelling bar, likely pilfered from a maid’s cart, and tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner sat in my hands. When Ryder pulled a small ragged towel from his bag, I swear I nearly started crying.
“Oh Ryder, I could kiss you!”
Pink rushed into his cheeks before he turned and stared at the ground. “Well, if the mood strikes, feel free to act on that.”
He cleared his throat and pushed to his feet. “I know you hate swimming, but I can’t imagine what you’re going through on your side. Gabe said he brings Harmony out here to clean up. I have more to do. I’ll give you some space.”
I looked from my presents, still cradled in my hands, up to Ryder’s face. I traveled back, weeks ago, to that moment before this nightmare took over. We’d been wrapped up in each other, lost in something deeper than I knew how to explain. Was he still there too? Thinking of the last time we were alone? Was that what I saw glimmering in his dark eyes?
Before he could act on any of it, he reversed and crossed the log bridge. I watched him go. I wanted to call out that I felt it. Despite Dallas’ hold on my past, I longed for a future with Ryder.
♦ ♦ ♦
Originally, I planned to wash my arms, maybe my legs, but the temptation to wash my hair proved too much. Water crept over my body and my heart rushed in response. Water breathed and moaned my name like a crypt keeper calling for a lost soul. Fear fueled my haste. I washed, rinsed, and hurried back to the ledge. Shivers prickled my skin when the cold air hit me. Using the torn towel, I dried the best I could. It felt ludicrous to step back into my dirty clothes, but I had no choice. Maybe they’d mask my fresh scent.
I dug through Ryder’s pack and found a comb near the bottom. Branches cracked from the forest. My heart leapt into my throat. The balls of my feet dug into the damp earth, poised to flee. Ryder stepped into the clearing, hands up. Cold relief washed over my skin.
“You look better.” He crossed the log, a red icebox in his hands.
“I feel better,” I said and added a heartfelt, “thank you” on the end. The log shifted beneath me as he took a seat. With less dirt caking my body and hair clear of matted tangles, I felt human again.
“Shouldn’t we be fishing? You told them I’m some kind of savant.”
Ryder patted the cooler. “We caught a lot, don’t worry.”
“But where? How did you—”
“Shane.”
Of course.
“You’ve been in contact with him?”
His nod confirmed it. “I check in through the cells almost every day. This was his idea, a chance for us to share information, and for you to get a break.”
“It’s not easy for you either.”
My fingers traced the yellowed bruises on his cheek. His brow pulled inward and creased hard, but I knew it wasn’t from pain—at least not physical pain. His touch had carved away at me those first few times, so intense I nearly shattered.
“I can take it.” His mouth turned into the warmth of my hand. I knew he meant that he’d endured worse from his father, but my guilt still burned.
“Are you sure? Everyone has a breaking point.”
His lips clamped shut, but his sense to admit the truth won out. “It’s been bad, I’ll admit it. Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“How so?”
Ryder shook his head and brushed it away. “It’s not important. I’ll be okay.”
I weighed my options between pressing him for more information, and letting him have his privacy. If he could wait, so could I.
“Uncle Shane bought us fish?”
With palpable effort he pulled himself away from my hand. “Better than that, he caught them downstream and walked them in. That way they’re authentic.”
“Are they dead?”
He frowned, but managed a smile. “I think so. I didn’t check. It’s full of water.”
Earlier, I’d spotted a cord for stringing fish at the base of his bag. Stretching across Ryder’s legs, I pulled the cooler closer to me. The lid popped open. Ryder drew in a deep breath and blew it out again. I glanced over my shoulder. His cheeks reddened as if he’d been caught. It was only then that I realized our predicament, me stretched over his lap, Ryder with his hands up so he wouldn’t touch me and trigger anything.
“Sorry.” I sank back to my space next to him, feeling very much a child for my rash actions.
“You don’t have to apologize. You caught me off guard, that’s all.” His nervous chuckle eased the tension between us. “You haven’t been willing to get close to me for a long time, not voluntarily at least. I’ll take what I can get.”
It was nothing more than a gut reaction, but maybe that’s what excited him. My base instincts told me I was safe with him, and for a moment, I listened.
My dad taught me how to string fish as a kid, slipping the cord through the mouth and out the gills. Thankfully, Shane’s trout were all dead, five in total, crammed into the cooler. I tied the end of the string to a heavy rock and lowered the catch into the water. Noting Ryder’s confused expression, I clarified my actions.
“They’ll be fresher this way.” I looked for the sun, but the glow didn’t warm the dark clouds. “How long do you think we have?”
“Gabe won’t be back until the afternoon. I brought you food.”
“Soap and food? You know the way to a girl’s heart, don’t you?”
He crossed his fingers. “Here’s hoping.”
“I guess it’ll depend on what you brought.”
It felt strange to flirt after living in a constant state of fear for weeks. The words and the tone were vaguely familiar, but the faintest smile made me feel criminal.
Never one to back down from a challenge, Ryder grinned. “I like my chances.”
With a dramatic flair, he produced a large dinner roll from a pocket of his pack. He set it in my waiting hands. I tore a piece off and popped it in my mouth. With a wink, Ryder produced a small bundle wrapped in a scrap of linen fabric. As the cloth fell away, my mouth instantly began to salivate.
Bacon. Two strips of bacon and half a chicken breast. If he’d thought to offer marriage in exchange for that protein, I would’ve accepted.
I didn’t taste the first one. I don’t even know when I ate it. Ryder’s eyes widened as I snatched the chicken breast. I tried to pace myself, but I had no regard for manners or public decency. I didn’t care what he thought of me as I savored each bite, sucking the juices free and holding them in my mouth until there was nothing but tasteless pulp.
“Do you ever have meat?” Ryder asked as I finished the last of the chicken. His tone reminded me of the way explorers spoke to aboriginals in the movie
s. It clued me in on how I appeared from his perspective.
“No,” I told him as I forced myself to slow down and eat small bites of the roll. “Hardly any protein, not even beans. Harmony boiled a few eggs the other day, and I shared one with Moonlight.”
He came to the same conclusion that I had.
“They want to make you weak.”
I stared at the bacon as if it was my last meal.
“Do you eat like this all the time?” I hated how pathetic my question sounded, deprived and broken.
Hesitation pulled at his face until all of our prior light-hearted humor drowned in the serious nature of our reality.
“I guess it’s the opposite. They want us strong.”
I noted the white feather in his hands, brushing over his bruised knuckles as if he could sweep away the violence. The bacon grease coated the top of my mouth, thick like the mud I wallowed in for my chores. My stomach turned once, and I pressed a hand over my abdomen to quell a sudden lurch of sickness. He didn’t ask if I was okay. How could I be? Yet, it was not my predicament that worried me. It was the rest of them.
The voiceless.
The sheep.
The trapped.
“Are you sleeping at all, Huckleberry?”
I’d forgotten how much I loved when he called me by that name. Somehow, with Vanessa on a backburner, the nickname rang sweeter than I remembered.
“Not really.”
He stopped and started twice before he actually got the words out.
“Do you want me to hold you?”
“Excuse me?”
I didn’t mean to snap at him, but he caught me off guard. His mouth opened and closed as he stumbled over his words.
“I remembered—I thought—I mean, if you aren’t sleeping…” Defeat anchored his sight to the ground before he spoke again and shoved his feather back into his pocket. “The night after Stella died, I thought it helped you sleep when I held you.”
I had no reason to distrust him, and yet I still looked for his ulterior motives. The longer I waited to answer him, the more his muscles tensed and shifted.
They were tangled up—the memories of Ryder and Dallas—separate but similar. It was true Ryder had held me, but Dallas had as well and I couldn’t shake the feeling of Dallas’ heartbeat in my ear or his skin against my cheek.
In college, I’d learned a simple principle. The connections in our brains are strengthened by repeat use. If a memory is recalled regularly, multiple pathways are created to that particular storage site, making it that much easier to retrieve. From the opposite perspective, if a memory or skill is not remembered or practiced, that pathway slowly erodes and degrades until it is nonexistent. If reaching out to Ryder would help weaken those memories of Dallas, then that alone made it worth it.
I moved closer, not a sound between us, but the forest perked with curiosity. The trees rustled as they watched me slip into the space beside him that had been carved to hold my shape. A frog croaked from the rippling water, surprised as Ryder’s arm eased over my shoulder, slow and deliberate, obviously worried I might break. A lark began her twittering song as Ryder’s face dipped and tilted, his weight pressed against the top of my head. A couple of leaves dropped as the lark flew off to give us the privacy we needed.
Emotions tangled in the net in my mind. I clung to Ryder, but I felt the knife, I saw Dallas’ brilliant blue eyes peering back at me with a maddening glint. The textured fabric of Ryder’s shirt twisted in my grip to anchor me so Dallas couldn’t pull me away. Screams billowed in my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut to force it out. Ryder probably wanted to know what plagued me, but maybe he was afraid to hear that I might never heal. Instead, his warm palm caught my clenched fist and steadied me.
The voices silenced.
The screams vanished.
Dallas’ heartbeat had been slow, never afraid, and always steady. I’d admired it at first, until I came to know the real reason. He had nothing to fear. Demons don’t fear the shadows.
In contrast, Ryder’s racing heart thumped out his secrets. Muscles clenched and relaxed at odd intervals. He was afraid of me. But why? I could feel it in every movement, every breath and thought. He was terrified. Overcome with curiosity, I tilted my face up to see his expression.
Pain. Lips parted, room for breath but nothing more. Corners turned down and in. Tension in his brow, nose, cheeks, and jaw. My name etched there, though he didn’t speak it. The muscles in his chest shifted as he swallowed hard and eased closer to me. My focus landed on the lips that were once briefly mine. My hand could slip over his jaw, it knew the path already. His arms would tighten and collapse the space between us. We’d fly.
He was scared to lose me. Ryder knew at a moment’s notice I could be gone, and the thought of life without me terrified him. It should have been good news. To any other rational person, it would’ve been good news, but instead I felt his fear drain into me and fill every chamber of my heart. To avoid his kiss and the promise I knew it held, I turned my face and his lips pressed against my cheek.
Ryder reversed and tipped his head back against the log behind us. The need to explain myself churned in my gut. I had to help him understand how tangled up I was, how torn and ruined I’d always be.
“Ryder—”
“Don’t,” he stopped me short. “Don’t say it.” Bitter frustration clenched his tone. “Sleep, Lindy.”
The entire forest exhaled with me, relief or defeat, perhaps disappointment.
Pain.
I hurt him, he hurt me, never ending it seemed.
Chapter 23
Fluttering wisps broke my deep sleep. My nerves jolted my system into overdrive. I smelled Dallas. His arms were around me. I tried to push away, but the weight of his grip hung heavy and secure.
“Lindy.” Ryder’s sleepy voice drew me back in. I remembered the weight was his, the warmth was his, and I let my body relax into the safety of his embrace again.
“Sorry,” I mumbled through my embarrassment.
When would it end? When would I forget?
“Don’t apologize. This has never been your fault.”
But it was my fault. It began when I’d turned right, maybe before then, maybe the second I agreed to take Aunt Stella’s case, or the moment I’d walked into Johnny’s bar. Everything fell square on my shoulders. If I’d never—
“Tell me what they did to you in Germany.”
His words jarred my thoughts. I expected more questions about Dallas, or our relationship, but questions about my rewired brain?
“I don’t know much,” I said. “It screwed me up for a while. I don’t remember anything from that time.”
“Do you know how they did it?”
“No. Shane said the doctor created a new memory over the old one.”
My insecurities glowed bright, but Ryder tucked my hair behind my ear as if the questions were normal.
“I want to do that to you.”
Had I heard him right? He couldn’t possibly be serious. No way would I let someone violate my brain like that again, no matter how horrible the memory was.
“Thank you, but I’m having a hard enough time figuring out what’s real.”
Ryder shifted to wrap me closer to him. “No, I want to rewrite myself over the top of his memory. Every bad memory you have, I want a new good memory to cover it. Maybe you’ll stop looking at me like I might hurt you.” My scalp tingled as his fingers traced the texture of my braid. “Maybe you’ll trust me again.”
His heart accelerated as his confession hovered between us. I wondered if it were possible to rewrite my brain, to untangle the mess of my psyche.
“I don’t know if—” I stopped myself. “This isn’t the time, Ryder, how can we—”
“I want to help them.” He sat up to face me.
“Help who?” I asked as I straightened myself.
“The guys, the honest and decent families at Eden’s Haven. The ones who are trapped and forced to live like this. They�
�re planning a rebellion and I want to help them.”
“It’s too dangerous. You have no way of knowing who you can trust. How do you know they aren’t playing you? One wrong move and you’ll be killed.”
A sneaky grin slid up his cheek. “I’ve got you. They don’t stand a chance.” He stared into my eyes. “You’ll be able to tell who’s on our side.”
“I don’t see anything anymore,” I said. “I can’t do it.”
He pushed closer. “Sure you can, watch them. You’ll see it from a mile away. I don’t understand why—”
“Because I didn’t see him!” Ryder recoiled at the sharp slash of my words. “I never saw Dallas for what he was, and I should’ve died. I can’t take that kind of risk on your life.”
That name always found a way to push between us, an invisible barricade—impossible to traverse. My partner’s lips pressed together and turned white under the pressure. Once more he held back words, choking on everything he wished he could say but decorum prevented him from telling me.
“I’m going to help them anyway.” The faintest of smiles shone in his eyes. “Besides, even the rotten guys love me these days.” He pushed himself to his feet. It was time to head back. I grasped his outstretched hand and let him pull me up.
“Well,” I tried to dispel some of the tension with teasing, “who couldn’t love Ryder Billings?”
He cocked an eyebrow and shot me a knowing look. “I can think of at least one person.” He cleared his throat and let my hand drop, quick to change the subject. “I think it has more to do with the fact that I don’t drink the booze.”
I glanced up from where I pulled the fish from the water. “You’re still doing that?”
He brushed it off. “I’ve gotten used to it now. I get why you do it. You like to be in control of yourself. Besides, last time didn’t end well.”
I followed him over the log bridge, careful with our string of counterfeit fish. “What happened?”
Ryder pretended not to hear at first. He faced the woods, but when he realized I wouldn’t drop it, he finally said, “In August, I received some upsetting news and got wasted.”
Sparrows & Sacrifice Page 17
