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“And we’re not a grocery store,” he shot back.
I glowered at him.
“I don’t regret giving them food,” I snapped, and then readjusted the quilt beneath me.
“You might regret it later,” he pointed out, frustrated, “when we don’t have anything else.”
“Then we’ll hunt and fish and forage for more.” My voice was calm and I did not look up.
Atticus sprang back into a stand and paced.
“What if they’d slit your throat while you slept?” he said crossly, stopping once. “And what if—”
My head shot up and I looked right at him. “They didn’t,” I said, cutting him off. “They didn’t hurt either one of us; they just wanted our stuff.” I pushed my head forward so he could see the intensity of my eyes in the dark. “And because they didn’t hurt us, or kill our horses for food, that’s why I gave them our bread.”
“Ridiculous,” he mumbled.
I stood up and moved toward him then, stepping around the small campfire that had burned out; my hands were clenched into fists at my sides.
Atticus stood firm, his features hard.
“There’s still good in those people,” I argued. “You’re right—they could’ve slit our throats while we slept; they could’ve taken everything we have; they could’ve done a lot of things.” I closed most of the space between us, looking up at him as he towered over me.
Then I sighed, abandoning my argument, and changing the topic to the deeper-rooted matter.
“Why are you so angry, Atticus?” My voice was soft and concerned now.
He blinked, but offered no response.
“I’ve seen men fight before,” I went on, “but I’ve never seen a man as angry at the world as you are. The way you beat that man in your room”—I shook my head with despondency—“the one just now; Atticus, you’re just so full of rage and hate. Why?”
He snorted, as if he’d found my question ridiculous.
“Why?” he mocked incredulously, holding out his hands, palms up. “I’ll tell you why, Thais: at every turn, someone wants to rob or maim or kill us; we can’t sleep, night or day, without the thought in our heads as we close our fucking eyes that we might not wake up.” He gestured his arms wildly, his features constricted with indignation. “We’re covering our shit up like animals, sleeping in ditches, watching over our shoulder every second of every day for the chaos to grab us by the ankles and pull us down with it—and you ask why?”
I sat against my quilt, unable to stand to hear this truth. And as if his movements depended on mine, Atticus fell into a crouch in front of me, bouncing on the toes of his boots. I never looked away from the pull of his gaze, trapped by the intensity of it.
“I haven’t slept since you arrived in Lexington City,” he went on. “When I saw you that day, clutching your sister as she was ripped away from you; when you lay on the sidewalk, begging me to help you—it did two things to me, Thais”—he held up two fingers, and then dropped them between his legs—“it fucking killed me; the things I had to do, the part I had to play in not only your fate, but the fate of every girl in those ropes—it fucking killed me! It killed what little was left of my humanity!” His voice had risen with his heated words, his memories, but then he calmed himself, lowering his head but for a moment.
I remained motionless, speechless, but my heart ached and filled up simultaneously. I listened raptly to every word, my heart breaking as he spoke them.
“It killed me,” he repeated. “But then something reached into Hell, grabbed me by the throat and pulled me back. I died that day in the street, Thais Fenwick; I died and then there I was, looking down at you with the eyes of the man I used to be, and I wanted to help you. I still fought with myself after that, but I wasn’t going to let you die or be raped or forced to marry a man you didn’t love—I didn’t know what to do, but I was going to do something, goddammit.”
I sighed. I wanted to hold him, but all I could do was sigh.
ATTICUS
A knot moved down the center of my throat; my gaze veered to capture the dark trees behind Thais, rather than the gentle beauty of her face.
“If it’s the last thing I do,” I said, “I will get you to a safe place, and I don’t care how many men—or women—I have to kill or beat like the fucking scum of the earth they are, to make that happen.”
I rose into a stand.
“Yes, I’m angry,” I said at last, looking down at the top of her head, “and yes, my anger burns deep in my blood like a raging infection, but I won’t let it happen to you, not like…” I broke off as I thought of my sisters and my mother.
I couldn’t finish.
“Are you afraid of me?” I asked her instead.
