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Lips pressed to a straight line, he shakes his head. “Not much light where I was kept.”
A twinge of sadness pierces my heart, and I lower the book to my lap. “That must’ve seemed very hopeless for you.”
“So, why don’t you tell me about this stubborn woman you’re reading.”
“What, like … read to you?”
“Sure.”
“Um … okay.” Even if I find it a strange request, coming from him, I lift the book up again, and start at the beginning. It’s not as if I managed to get very far, anyway. While I read aloud, Titus keeps on with his carving, only really perking with my occasional shifting on the chair. I catch him looking back at me a few times, his gaze lingering on my exposed legs sticking out of the robe, before quickly diverting. It’s only once I’ve pulled the fabric over them, covering them, that he stops with his peeking. Perhaps silently embarrassed for having been caught.
When I move onto the next chapter, he picks up another stick, quietly carving away. My voice grows hoarse around the fifth chapter, and I set the book down, exhaustion weighing heavy on my eyelids. “I think I’ll go to bed now. We can pick up tomorrow. If you still want to hear the story.”
“Sure.” He gathers up the half dozen sticks he’s carved, and tosses them off his makeshift bed on the floor, then corrals up the small bits of wood into his palm and feeds them to the fire.
The whole house is warm and cozy, but as I walk the dark hallway toward the bedrooms, a cold shiver dances across the back of my neck. There’s no way I’m sleeping in the same room as the man who essentially decayed in his bed. Instead, I stop at the bedroom where the son must’ve slept, and pause with my hand on the knob.
The icy chill grows intense, and I release the knob, spinning around for the lantern I left in the living room.
Rounding the corner, I skid to a halt.
Standing before the fire, Titus slips the towel from his waist, letting it fall to the floor. I nearly choke on my own spit, taking in the sight of his stark naked, muscled ass and the meaty thighs that taper to equally toned calves.
He turns to face me, cupping himself, something that, I notice, takes more than one hand to accomplish, and that signature frown creeps across his face. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to … spy. I just …. I need the lantern. I’m sorry.” My cheeks burn with humiliation, as I lower my head and scamper for the lantern. Once I have it, I keep my eyes on the floor as I turn around. “Just so I don’t make this mistake again, do you always sleep in the nude?”
“I prefer it.”
“Good to know.”
“Where I come from, a body is just flesh and blood. A machine. I didn’t choose any of these parts.”
It’s strange, but now that he says it, I can see what he’s talking about. The bulges of muscle on an otherwise lean frame that look masterfully chiseled. A mostly hairless chest, and long sturdy legs that are well proportioned to his upper half. Too perfect to be entirely natural in a world where people are starving. Except for the excessive number of scars that mar his skin, he almost looks too perfect to be human. Like hard steel forged by fire and pain, hammered down to one impressive weapon.
“The scars … they did that to you. At the hospital?”
“They did a lot of things to me at Calico.”
I’ve always been a woman of medicine and science, but seeing the evidence of what he suffered at the hands of men who were supposed to help him, to heal him, breaks my heart. “I’m sorry for what happened to you.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“Because no one should suffer that way. As you said, you didn’t choose any of it.”
“I was there because Legion raided my hive. Men like your father loaded me up on a truck and took me away from the only home I’ve ever known.”
The man I knew, son of the most compassionate woman I’ve ever known, wouldn’t have been capable of that kind of callousness. “My father wouldn’t have done that. He would’ve spared your life.”
“Maybe. But maybe he didn’t choose any of what happened, either.”
* * *
In the blackness, I hear screams. Loud, painful, throaty screams.
As I snap my eyes open to the shadowed room, the screams persist. I scramble out of bed and hustle down the hallway, the intensity of each outcry heightening my nerves, until I halt at the open living room.
Titus lies curled into a ball on the floor before the fire, whimpering and growling. Scratching at his skull. “No, stop it! No more! No more!” The sound of his bellows bounces off the wall, and my chest tightens as I watch him tremble and claw at himself. “Stop!”
