Page 40 of Inflict

And Connor froze.

Green eyes—as dead as they seemed to be in their deep pools—watched him. Pink lips, set in neither a frown nor a smile, barely parted with her breaths. It was the slope of her nose, down to the cupid’s bow of her lips, and even the high lines of her cheekbones that he did a double-take.

Because her eyes were the most familiar.

Her eyes he recognized.

Her features, however, were older.

Gone was the healthy pinkness of a girl-child that had met him in the woods, day after day for well over a year two decades before. Lost was the roundness of her cheeks when her joyful smiles took over her entire face. Vanished was the wee girl who was just a child, because he knew all too well how growing up into an adult took away the expressions of the young.

But it was her.

There was no denying that.

It was her.

He’d thought about her a lot over the years, because she had been such an important piece to his childhood—a good, happy memory—whereas the rest, he preferred to keep buried. It had been her love of drawing, her childish scribbles, that pushed him toward a new escape when he no longer had a playmate outside of the hell his home constantly was.

She haunted him.

Her sweet voice, pretty dresses, all her bows and sparkly shoes … they haunted him.

How could he forget?

“Evelyn,” Connor murmured behind his bandana.

Her green eyes looked over his face, or what of it she could see, he supposed. His eyes, the upper part of his face, and then down over the lower portion of the skull bandana keeping him covered. That recognition he knew was in his eyes, did not show in hers.

Not even an ounce of it.

And good God, that hurt.

Connor tugged the bandana down, letting it fall around his neck, hoping that if she looked a wee bit harder, stared for a while longer, she might see him, too. Instead, all he got was that same, blank stare.

One he knew was probably learned.

It was always learned.

“Do you talk at all?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Are you allowed to?”

Nothing.

Connor’s hand lifted again, and before he knew it, the pads of his fingertips traced the line of her cheekbone, gentle and slow. Freckles dotted her skin, from the bridge of her nose to her cheeks, and even across her shoulders. “I have to go—you have to listen.”

A nod answered him back.

She understood, at least.

That was one battle over.

“Up,” he demanded, grabbing Evelyn by the elbow and pulling her to stand.

Even once she was up on her feet, she didn’t move. His patience was already running on low fuel, but he tried to tamper his immediate reaction to just throw her over his shoulder and go with her.