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His bottom lip jutted up. “Yes, she was. So I looked at her directly. You were still waiting. Waiting for mama to appear. Waiting for father. Waiting for someone to tell us what to do. But I knew by then Father wasn’t coming out of the ash. Mama wasn’t coming out of the ash.”
He paused, his nostrils flaring as he took a deep breath. “I was already thinking on what we would do next and I saw Mrs. Halikin. Her gaze went past me, just above my head, but then her look caught my eye. She stared at me for the longest moment. So long, our eyes locked. And I could see it in her. See her weighing her decision. See the moment she made a choice. See that the choice wasn’t pity. Wasn’t benevolence.”
“Strider…”
His lips pulled inward, then pursed. “She gave me the weakest smile, an apology I imagine, and then she turned around, walking back to her house down the street. Closing her door. She wasn’t going to help us. If anyone there would have, it would have been her. But it wasn’t. We weren’t worth helping. That was how she’d judged us.”
Horror crept into her green eyes as her body recoiled from him. Her hand lifted, covering her mouth. “That was when you said it was time to leave, wasn’t it? You said Mama June and your papa were gone to us and then you tugged on my hand and pulled me away from there. I didn’t want to leave, but you dragged me—crying and screaming—away.”
He didn’t bother to nod, his body, his head perfectly still. “I had to. There was no reason to stay.”
She staggered a step backward. Then another. Her right hand reached out to grip an iron spindle, her body wavering, a flag in the wind, her hold on the fence the only thing keeping her upright. “Why did you never tell me this?”
One long stride forward and he stopped in front of her, only a breath away as he looked down at her. “I never wanted you to feel what I felt in that moment.”
Her look crept upward, her eyes glossy and huge with unshed tears as she met his look. “What?”
“Worthless.”
She gasped, her chest lifting, and she turned from him, her back to the fence.
“People are not kind, Pen. No matter how you want to believe it. They are in this life for themselves—no one else. I would have thought you would have resigned yourself to that fact long ago.”
She stiffened. Her back snapping straight and her body turning into stone. If he didn’t know better, he’d be looking over his shoulder for Medusa. Her eyes hooded, the threatening tears dried up instantly, her face an icy mask as her hands clasped together in front of her belly.
She did that, curled her fingers together, wrapping one side into the other with her right hand always on the bottom when she stiffened like that.
The first few times he’d seen it, he had thought nothing of it, but he’d realized something. Her body did this anytime she put on the facade of calm. The facade where she was barren of emotion.
The first few times he’d seen it, Strider had thought she was merely being still—the epitome of calm—but then he saw her right middle finger on the bottom twitching. Well hidden, but he could see the movement.
He watched her for a long, silent minute.
Her finger was twitching right now.
He reached out and grabbed both of her wrists, pulling her hands apart and flipping them over.
The tip of her glove on her right middle finger had worn through, her fingernail poking through the thin leather. He looked to her other hand. Her left glove had a hole at the center top of her palm. He pulled it closer to his face. The skin underneath the hole was raw. Or was it bleeding?
Dropping her right hand, he peeled off her left glove.
She tried to tug her hand away, but he held her wrist in place, twisting her palm upward.
A smeared, bloody mess directly in the top middle of her palm.
He’d seen—caused—more than his share of blood, but the smear of it on her hand twisted his gut in a way he didn’t recognize.
“Strider, don’t.” The fingers of her left hand curled inward, hiding the gouge from his view.
He jerked her wrist upward. “What is this, Pen?”
She yanked at her arm, trying to pull her hand out of view. “Nothing, It’s nothing.”
His grip tightened on her wrist. “You do this to yourself, don’t you?”
“Strider, it’s nothing. Truly.”
“No, I’ve seen you, Pen. Sitting there in the carriage like a statue. It was the same thing in my drawing room. The same thing in the park. You’re cold marble. Not moving a muscle, not letting even the slightest blink veer out of place when you are hiding whatever it is you’re thinking. But your finger, your finger betrays you.” He shook her wrist. “This blood betrays you.”
