AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His Adam’s apple did that bob that made her skin tingle. “I know,” was all he said, but his fingers didn’t fall away.
It was as if he wanted to touch her even though it brought him pain. She wanted to question him, but her eyes had shut, and her limbs became limp and heavy. She didn’t have the energy to cover herself with the blanket. Her fingers loosened around it, even though his didn’t loosen at all.
She shouldn’t have felt comforted by that, but the question of why she did floated away, just as she seemed to on the soft, soft bed.
Chapter 16
Alina slept through the night, something she’d been unable to do ever since her private cabin in the woods had burned down. She woke, feeling the grogginess of too much rest. The slide of the blanket that she could have sworn she hadn’t managed to pull over herself was soft against her skin.
Her opposite hand closed around the wrist Luka had been holding. Her eyes focused on the empty space beside her, and she rose upright, sure her eyes were tricking her.
Luka wasn’t huddled on the ottoman instead. He wasn’t in the room at all.
The bathroom door stood open and dark. No water was running, not that his bandages should get wet.
She pushed herself from the bed, tripping over the cloth sneakers on the floor that she never took off in case she had to run. She’d been wearing them to bed, and she was certain she’d curled up with them on her feet the night before.
Leaving them in her rush, she searched the rest of the house. He must have gotten sick of being still, though that didn’t seem right. Luka seemed patient, the total opposite of stir-crazy.
He’d also nearly spilled his guts through that cut across his stomach only days before. He should be resting. Her hands clenched as she found the key gone and the front door locked behind him. She should have been used to it. She was always left alone. An unfamiliar flutter of heat rushed through her body. She took a breath, but it didn’t help.
Alina moved back into the kitchen, but there was nothing to do there. She cleaned up after every meal, leaving nothing out of place. The limited food she had purchased was neatly stored. One glass stood next to the sink, the one she’d been using for Luka. She could rinse it, but her hand shook with the urge to stalk over, pick it up, and smash it against the ground.
She’d never acted like that, broken something just to break it. The heat was making her mind all hollow. She spun, heading back to the bedroom.
The knives on top of the dresser were gone.
He’d only removed them as a sign to her. She should have been relieved he took them. That meant he was fully lucid and intent on protecting himself, maybe even back to killing again. He’d been pale while he’d eaten the ramen the night before, though, and she wished he had rested in bed for at least another day.
Alina had taught herself not to wish for things over the years. Wishing led to disappointment, which would become heavy in her chest, weighing down her movements and her motivation to do anything but wallow in her loneliness.
The heat inside her didn’t feel like that. She needed to move, to do something.
Her eyes slanted toward the nubs that had been pencils, but for once drawing didn’t appeal to her. She stalked into the bathroom instead, her hands uncurling as she reached for the medical supplies. Reorganizing them would work well enough. Besides, she’d probably need them if Luka returned.
She set down the metal container filled with bandages with a bit too much force. Her hand stilled as the bathroom echoed with the noise. She stared at that hand, shaking with the urge to throw the metal object instead. Her imagination showed her shards of glass falling from the mirror. That would be bad. The woman would have been angry.
Which wasn’t fair. The woman had been the one to throw things.
Alina lifted her head to stare at herself in the mirror. She released the supplies she still gripped so tightly, her hand moving to her stomach instead. The heat hadn’t faded from it, but it didn’t feel as consuming as before. Her heart raced in her chest, made worse by the sudden sound of the front door closing.
Luka never made a sound. She knew his presence more by the way the air pressure changed.
Which meant someone else had come for her. And she wasn’t wearing her shoes. She banged her shoulder into the doorjamb of the bathroom in her haste to reach them, the sudden, dull throb doing nothing to quiet the panic inside.
But the panic evaporated with dizzying speed as she saw Luka. His hands were weighed down by plastic bags—bags and bags of she had no idea what. His eyes held their normal calm blankness, and his face looked pale and gaunt, but there was also something there she’d never seen before. His lips tilted up ever so slightly, as if he was smiling. He lifted the bags out toward her. “For you,” he said in that quiet voice of his.
Alina’s chest tightened, as if the last breath she’d taken wouldn’t leave her lungs. She stared at him without moving, and the vague hint of a smile dropped from his face.
Luka started to bend, but his body stilled as if he was in pain. He crouched instead, disentangling his hands from the plastic straps. In the nearest one, a familiar tube rolled free, but she couldn’t make sense of it, not with the unfamiliar whirl inside her stomach distracting her.
He backed away from the bags, using his quick movements again, but he almost tripped over a bag, which wasn’t like him. His hand hovered over his stomach, where the black material looked darker and wet.
The heat rocketed through her again. “Goddammit, Luka!” she shouted.
His eyes flew wide at the sound.
Alina stomped forward, the heat growing worse when he flinched away from her as her hand flew out. He should trust her not to touch him by now. She pursued him, lifting the hem of his shirt. The material tried to cling to his stomach, already telling her what she needed to know before the blood-soaked bandage below was visible.
