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Perhaps Hayden had been right back at the cabin, as much as he’d pissed her off that night. She probably would’ve run right in and gotten herself killed before ever accomplishing her goals. His cold, obsessive need to control everything might’ve bugged her at times, but maybe she needed some of that to cool herself off.
Allowing Hayden to worm his way into this mission had been a good thing, it seemed.
“I let you into my little world,” Anna said after they’d finished talking about their mission. “Let me into yours.”
Hayden raised a brow at her, then turned forward once more. “What do you want to know?”
“Being that I know so much about you already? Oh, I don’t know, maybe everything?”
He chuckled. “And ruin my reputation? Hmph.”
“Your reputation for what, being the broody, secretive one of your brothers?”
His face contorted. “Do you mean the intelligent, mysterious one?”
Laughter burst from her throat, echoing through the trees around them. She liked playful Hayden… quite a bit. “Obviously.”
He grinned, the sight still stunning her. She may not have been used to his smiles, yet, but she definitely wanted to be. They were a beautiful sight. “Seriously, what do you want to know?”
What did she want to know? Well, everything. She wanted to know where he was brought up, where he’d been before the Resistance. How he met Hunter and Sawyer and Derek and became one of them. How he always knew things, how he got his scars, how he kept his composure all the time and why.
She’d start simple. “Were you raised in the districts like Derek, or out in the wilderness like Hunter and Sawyer?” It was alarming how much more she knew about the other Resistance leaders.
“District.”
“When did you escape?”
“Just before my seventeenth birthday.”
She kept waiting for him to elaborate more on his answers, but he didn’t. So she just kept asking questions. “How’d you get out?”
“Fought my way out.” Well, duh.
“Is that how you got those scars?”
At that question, he hesitated. “No. My father.”
She swallowed hard at that answer and waited. The silence stretched so long, she almost thought he wouldn’t say more. How the hell does one ask someone to elaborate on something so personal? Not that Anna was the queen of polite conversation, by any means, but she had scars herself. Even for her, there were lines that shouldn’t be crossed.
Then he finally spoke. “I was an unruly child. He claimed he was trying to fix me.”
Her brows furrowed. “You? Unruly?” It was meant to lighten the mood, but Hayden didn’t offer her any more of those laughs she was coming to love. “How does scarring you teach you a lesson?”
He shrugged. “I’m no longer unruly.”
She choked out a small laugh. She meant to be serious, but… maybe that just wasn’t her style. “That’s gold coming from a leader in a group that literally calls themselves the Resistance.”
His eyes met hers, back to that cold, unfeeling look he always used to have on his face, but slowly, a smile spread across his lips. It was subtle, but it was enough. “I guess you’re right. I just found new ways to channel my unruliness.”
Shaking her head, she laughed. “You were just a kid.” It didn’t matter what he’d done, he didn’t deserve to have half his face torn apart. The scars moved down his neck, his chest and shoulders, his back. Scars littered the entire left half of his body, and there was nothing a child could’ve done to deserve that. Nothing.
A fierce, protective wave washed over her. She’d only felt that protectiveness toward Julia before, and maybe a tiny bit toward Rain. But now, she felt it fiercely and powerfully for Hayden. For the tiny version of him that had been tormented by someone who was meant to protect him, to keep him safe.
She’d been scarred by people who promised to protect her, too.
And now Hayden was helping her hunt them down and kill them.
“I know how it feels to be betrayed by someone close to you.” Her mind drifted back, back to the warmth and the comfort, the blood and the screams. “You were a kid. I was a kid. Neither one of us deserved that.”
