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While he was toweling himself off, Abbey was doing the same—though she didn’t take off any of her clothes, he noticed. Instead, she wrapped one of the big, soft towels around her shoulders and just sat there, shivering miserably.
Solon couldn’t understand her actions—he especially didn’t know why she would jump into the bathing pool when it was clear she couldn’t swim. He was determined to get to the bottom of her reasoning, however. He couldn’t live for a whole month with a female who was so unpredictable. But first he wanted to calm her.
He sat down beside her on the bench and reached for her hand. Abbey tried to yank it away, but he held on, not letting her go.
“Please, just let me hold your hand,” he said in a low voice. “Let me try to help you feel better.”
“How will holding hands with my kidnapper make me feel better?” she demanded bitterly.
“Just give me a minute,” Solon responded, not answering her question or her accusation. He could feel the anger and fear and hopelessness flowing through her and all of it had to do with him. She felt trapped with him here, he realized. Unable to get away. Like a lamb locked in the same room as a lion—she feared he would hurt her and felt helpless to stop him.
The feelings nearly broke his heart. Was this why she’d jumped into the bathing pool? Had she felt so hopeless about having to spend time with him that she wanted to end herself?
“Do you mind telling me why you did that?” he said, pushing emotions of calm and peace to her as hard as he could. “Why would you jump in the bathing pool if you can’t swim? I know you promised to make my life hell if I took you—were you trying to drown yourself?”
She looked up at him, her green eyes blazing and filled with tears of anger and fear.
“Trying to drown myself? No!”
“Then why?” Solon persisted. He pushed more peace and calm and also caring. I care for you, Abbey—I want you to feel safe with me. I don’t want you to feel trapped or hopeless. He knew she couldn’t hear his thoughts but the emotions behind them at least helped her stop crying.
“I didn’t jump in—I fell in because I couldn’t see where I was going!” she snapped. “I’m blind!”
“You’re what?” Solon shook his head—clearly he was missing something here. But he could Feel the truth of what she was saying through their skin-to-skin contact. She wasn’t lying to him—at least he didn’t think she was.
“I said, I’m blind,” she repeated. “What part of that don’t you understand?”
“You can’t be blind,” he said blankly, looking down at her. “You’re looking at me right now.”
“I’m looking at what I can see—which is very little,” she snapped. “A big gold blur—that’s all my eyes can show me.”
“So you can see—at least a little?” he asked, trying to understand.
She blew out a breath.
“I have a rare form of progressive optic neuropathy. And before you ask, yes it’s incurable, even by Kindred medicine. I know because my Aunt Rose went to the nearest HKR building and asked years ago. It’s taken all of my fine vision—I can’t see details or sharp edges or anything but colored blobs and blurs. So yes, I am legally blind.”
Solon didn’t know what to say. He felt like an idiot. But suddenly all the strange dreams he’d had when he was Dream-Sharing with her made sense. The fact that he couldn’t see anything but colorful blurs and nothing would come into focus—he’d been seeing through Abbey’s eyes, he realized. Seeing what she saw, which as she said, wasn’t much.
“I’m so sorry,” he said at last. “I…I didn’t know.”
“Well now that you do—now that you know I’m blind and defective—will you please pick someone else and let me go back to Earth?” There was pleading in her voice despite the belligerent look on her pretty face. But it was her words that Solon took issue with.
“Defective? What are you talking about?” he demanded. “Just because you can’t see what I see doesn’t make you ‘defective.’”
“Yes, it does,” she said dully. “Which is why every single guy on the dating apps I tried ghosted me as soon as they found out. All but Henry, anyway. And it turned out he wanted me because I was blind—because I was easy prey.”
Solon felt his stomach knot.
“Who is this ‘Henry’ and what did he do to you?” he asked in a low voice. “Did he hurt you?”
“Never mind.” She shook her head and looked down at her hand—or appeared to, at least—which Solon still held firmly in his own much larger hand.
“Please tell me,” he murmured, trying to keep his voice calm. “Please let me know if I need to go to Earth and avenge you. Did he hurt you, Abbey? Did he force you?”
As he spoke, he poured more and more emotion through their connection. Please trust me, please tell me!
“He tried,” she said at last. “But my guide dog, Major, stopped him.” She squeezed her eyes shut, as though reliving a painful memory. “Guide dogs are trained never to be aggressive—to stay calm no matter what. But Major was a German Shepherd and he was fiercely protective of me. When he saw that Henry was doing and heard me begging him to stop…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”
