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Chapter 9

Addie

Ididn’t have a lot of toys when I was younger. Besides Dolly, there wasn’t a lot that I wanted. I once was caught playing with plastic cars, and D.O.D. screamed at me for behaving like a boy. If I were to use fake medical tools I stole from the infirmary to play Doctor, Mother would whack me upside the head. No reason besides the fact that she was a bitter woman. That was the reason for all abuse, I had come to realize: bitterness. It took years of therapy for me to understand that I wasn’t to blame for the actions of my parents. They were the monsters, and I was the victim.

I bounced the red ball once more against the linoleum tiles. I allowed the motion to soothe me, to ease my inner turmoil. Up and down. Up and down. It was surprisingly easy to focus on the ball, only the ball, and to block out the rest of the world. Up and down. Up and down.

Tam sat behind me, his body heat almost stifling. Unlike me, his eyes were drawn to the gruesome display through the translucent window. The body. The dead girl.

The girl who had been alive only an hour earlier.

No. I couldn’t think about her. Pinpricks of terror sent my veins alight. Fear strangled me in an iron vise.

Up and down.

Bounce.

There was no word to describe the sound the ball made as it ricocheted off the white tiles. A plop, perhaps? Surely it couldn’t be called a “bounce”. The sound most definitely did not have that quality-

“Addie…” Tam murmured. I felt, rather than saw, him inch closer to me. His arms came to wrap around my waist, pulling me against his surprisingly firm and muscled chest. “You’re thinking aloud again.”

“Sorry,” I said automatically. He rubbed his nose into my scalp.

“Don’t apologize.”

“Sorry.”

He chuckled, his hands tightening. Despite the horrors of our situation, my heart gave a wild thump at his initiation of contact. Once again, I was reminded of the two faces of Tam. The shy, timid boy who used his hair as a shield and the MMA fighter who exuded confidence. I didn’t know what had changed within him now that we were alone, only that I liked it.

I likedhim.

Both sides of him, that was. I liked him, and I didn’t know how I felt about that.

“Why are you touching me?” I blurted before I could think my words through. I inwardly winced when Tamson’s body went ramrod straight behind me, and his hands dropped from my waist. My body cried out at the loss of heat.

I didn’t even have to look to know that his face would be a bright crimson, and his head would be ducked down. What the hell was wrong with me? I was a verbal bullet - once I was let loose, I hurt everyone in my path. Words escaped my mouth before I could reel them back in.

“No. No. No,” I said, reaching for his arms and rewrapping them back around my waist. “That’s not what I meant. I just meant…ugh. Words are hard and annoying. Why can’t we just telepathically communicate? That would make things ten times easier.” I trailed off, my teeth gnawing on my lower lip. Tam, behind me, remained stiff and unresponsive. I worried that whatever progress we had made had completely shattered by my big mouth.

I changed position so I was now facing him, still in the confines of his legs. As expected, his head was lowered and his cheeks were tinged pink. However, unlike the last few times, his eyes remained fixated on mine.

“I’m sorry I’m such an idiot,” I mumbled. My hand tightened on the red ball, my fingernails leaving idents.

His lips quirked upwards.

“Stop apologizing.”

“So now that we’re here…” I trailed off. There was no reason for me to clarify what “here” I meant. “Tell me more about yourself.”

He blinked at me, his lashes long and full. Beautiful. Framing eyes that were chips of emerald.

“I already told you,” he said softly. The blush had receded from his cheeks the more I talked, and his head had gradually began to raise. Hand trembling, he reached to tuck a strand of my curly hair behind my ear. “I lived with my grandma up until she died, and then the guys found me.”

“But you never told me what your life was like between that,” I pointed out. When his expression shuttered, I hurried to add, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t feel comfortable.”

There I went again. Fucking things up. I was the equivalent to auto-correct - you put up with me, but I pissed you off more than I helped you.

Tamson's expression turned thoughtful, almost contemplative. He grabbed my free hand and absently began to trace patterns on the sensitive skin of my palm. Goosebumps covered the entirety of my body. But the feeling was pleasant.

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