Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(32)
The sight of fresh water, clear and clean, was enough to rejuvenate me despite my injuries. Evelyn was the first to undress and I hastily followed her, though unlike her, I remained in my undergarments.
As it was, the moment I was free of my shirt, both Evelyn and Alex averted their eyes and the woods grew suddenly silent. I knew their reactions were because of the sad story my body told. Old scars and fresh bruises riddled the skin on my stomach and back, reminders of the beatings I’d endured at the hands of that bastard. My body was no longer a pretty package, something to be proud of or coveted, but instead a living reminder of the hell I’d lived through. I didn’t hate it, wasn’t ashamed of it, but neither did I like to look at myself for any length of time.
But seeing their faces, the cringes they both tried but failed to hide, caused a wave of humiliation to barrel through me. I didn’t want their pity; I didn’t want anyone’s pity. We’d all lived through our own horrors, and whether they showed on our skin or not, we all bore scars, didn’t we?
Evelyn’s scars were internal, buried down deep. She never spoke of her pain, of the past, of the people she’d loved and lost, but instead concealed them, hiding from them using whatever distraction she could, drawing strength from our nightmare.
And Alex, his scars were there, though shrouded by his silence and his perseverance. I didn’t know his story, the life he’d lived or what he’d endured before he came to live behind the walls of Fredericksville. But whatever it was, it had left a mark.
Wordlessly, I followed Evelyn into the creek, the stark contrast between the warm day and the cool water was glorious against my chafed and broken skin. I sank down quickly, feeling the silt and stones beneath me, and closed my eyes with a happy sigh.
“You know what would be amazing right now?” Evelyn asked.
I cracked an eyelid, squinting through the sunlight to find her perched on a small rock, bringing handfuls of water up to her face.
“Soap?” I suggested. “Clean clothes? Starbucks?”
From a few yards away I heard Alex snort, causing my own smile to form. Evelyn too, having raised her head from her hands, was grinning at me.
“Yes,” she agreed, laughing. “Soap, clean clothes, and Starbucks would all be amazing. But I was thinking more along the lines of a frosty cold one, straight out of the cooler. Getting a nice buzz going and lying naked out in the sun.”
She threw her head back, her face pointed toward the sky, and closed her eyes. Sitting there on that rock unabashedly, the sun beaming down on her, her luxurious hair hanging down her back, her naked and nicely toned body half in the water, half out, she arched her back in such a way that she looked like a mermaid, an ethereal beauty not from this world.
For reasons unknown to me, I found myself glancing over my back to where Alex was, kneeling in the shallow water, expecting I’d find him looking at her as well. The shock of his nudity momentarily startled me, and I found myself looking over every finely honed inch of his suntanned skin. He was a beautiful young man, his dark hair and scruff shining wet and black against his golden body, his dark eyes…
Our eyes met, mine wide with shock and his dark with guilt. He wasn’t looking at Evelyn at all; he was looking at me. And the intensity of that gaze wasn’t just surprising, but somewhat stifling. He looked away quickly and I did as well, only to find Evelyn watching me. She glanced between the two of us, her brow arched knowingly, a smirk on her lips. I stared at her, pleading with her with my eyes to keep her devilish mouth shut and not worsen what had just become an awkward situation.
Her impish grin turned gentle, and with a wink she turned away. Relieved, I set to washing myself as best I could, trying hard to ignore the sudden elephant that had just bumbled its way into my already complicated world.
Why had he been looking at me like that?
Although, I’d be lying if I were to say I wasn’t somewhat pleased to find that he hadn’t been looking at Evelyn.
Chapter Fourteen
Evelyn
Several days passed while we recuperated. We slept, ate, and healed, though some scars would never go away. I felt fractured, as if deep gouges had been ripped through my heart, hurting far more than my physical injuries. It was as if my soul was sad, almost crushed with the gravity of our situation. Was this it? Was this all we had to look forward to now? Meeting crazy people as we struggled to live—to survive each day?
I didn’t for one minute regret my decision to break Leisel out of Fredericksville, but I had hoped that there would be more to offer her out in the world. That perhaps man had been surviving, and we’d been merely locked away from the efforts that were being made to bring us back from near extinction. But I’d been wrong.
There was nothing good left in the world, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. I didn’t know how to make things better. That was my job, after all, who I was at heart. A people pleaser, someone who fixed things, made them work again. But I couldn’t make this better, didn’t know how to make this right. And the more I worried over it, the more I ached because of it, the harder it became to keep everything locked up tight inside me.
Things began to bubble to the surface, emotions and feelings that I’d kept locked up tight for so long now, cracks beginning to appear in my facade. Without Jami here, I didn’t have an outlet to rid myself of all this nervous energy simmering just below my surface. Without Jami, I didn’t know how to rid myself of my own demons, to quash them, rebury them before they started to show. The truth was, I could actually feel myself breaking apart and once I broke, who was going to put me back together?