Erasing Faith(24)

Faith shook her head lightly as she laughed, still lost in her thoughts.

“Red?”

“Mhmm?” she hummed, turning her attention to me.

As soon as she stopped thinking about the past and focused on her present, her eyes went wide with terror and her face drained of color. She backed as far from the railing as she could on the narrow walkway, tripping over a family of German tourists in her frantic flight with a series of whispered, white-faced apologies.

Hand still clasped around hers, I followed until her back pressed against the stone partition dividing walkers from cars. I leaned into her frame, forcing her to focus on me.

“Faith.” I whispered it like a benediction, my voice hushed and undeserving as I used her name for the first time — an unfit outlaw addressing a queen.

Her eyes snapped to mine and held.

“I’ve got you,” I told her simply, squeezing her hand in mine. “You hear me?”

She nodded unconvincingly.

“You’re safe. I can’t promise you much, but I’ll promise you this — you will always be safe with me.” I tried to convince myself it wasn’t a lie as the words left my mouth. “Look how far you’ve made it already, Red. You’re halfway there, without even realizing it.”

Her eyes left mine for a moment, darting over my shoulder to glance at the waters of the Danube. I heard her breathing rate increase, felt her heartbeat speed up to a rapid staccato at the pulse point in her wrist. Panic was setting in again.

“When I was a little boy—” I broke off abruptly and swallowed down the indecision that was clawing at my throat in a chokehold. I warred internally — did I follow protocol, as I’d done a million times before, and fabricate a convincing little anecdote to comfort her? Or, for the first time ever, did I throw the rulebook in the f*cking river and give her a piece of my own past?

Those beseeching honey-gold eyes returned to mine and the decision was made without another thought about proper procedure.

“When I was small, I didn’t have anyone. And, for a while, I was scared of everything — the dark, the monsters under the bed, the kids who were bigger and stronger than me at the shelter. Thunderstorms, dogs, strangers on the street. You name it, I feared it. Solitude makes the world a helluva lot scarier, especially when you’re a kid.” My eyes lost their focus as my thoughts turned inward, to places I’d left unexplored for decades. “After one particularly bad day, which started and ended with an empty stomach, I’d crawled into this abandoned warehouse and curled into a ball on the floor. And I remember just crying like the f*cking world was ending. For hours, till my eyes ached and my face was a streaked mess of dirt and snot and tears.”

Faith stared at me, her panic gone. In its place was a look that I wanted to hate on principle, but couldn’t. It wasn’t pity — it was horrified compassion. I couldn’t meet her eyes when she was looking at me that way, so I stared over the top of her head at the buildings on the embankment, their windows illuminating like distant fireflies as dusk fell.

“Hunger breaks you down, makes you weak. Not just your body; your mind.” I cleared my throat, as though that might expel the emotion that had lodged itself there. “I let it break me, that night.”

Faith was silent, absorbing my words with rapt attention. I swallowed again, as more cobwebbed, dust-coated memories rose to the surface unbidden.

“Finally, I heard a voice in the darkness. Nearly pissed my pants, I was so scared. It was this other street kid — bigger, stronger, meaner than me. He’d been on the streets for years. Told me to shut the f*ck up so he could finally get some shut eye.” One corner of my mouth lifted involuntarily. “And then he gave me a piece of advice I never forgot.”

I forced myself to look into Faith’s eyes.

“He told me, no matter what happens, no matter how scared you are, you can’t let fear shut you down forever. So you give it five seconds — you let it own you, control you, take hold of every one of your senses. But only for those five, finite seconds. You breathe them in, count them down. And when they’re over..” I dragged a ragged breath through my mouth. “You tell the fear to go f*ck itself.”

Forcibly, I pulled out of my twisted stroll down memory lane. I was rattled I’d revealed so much. Once I’d started, I hadn’t been able to stop myself from spitting out the whole goddamn sob story. I’d kept it locked inside for too long, without an outlet. I hadn’t talked about this shit since…

Actually, I’d never talked about this shit. Period.

Our eyes locked. Both of us were breathing too fast, like we’d been running a goddamned marathon. I didn’t know what else to say to her, so I waited.

“Just count to five?” she finally asked in a small voice. “That’s the big secret?”

I nodded. “Just count to five, Red.”

She looked over her shoulder at the water and panic flashed briefly on her features. Taking one shaky step closer to the railing, her grip tightened on mine.

“Will you count with me?”

I couldn’t hide the smile that was tugging at my lips. “Of course.”

Together, we took a step closer to the edge.

“One,” I counted, nodding in encouragement when she looked my way.

A shiver of fear rippled through her body, but she took another determined step toward the water.