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“I just said the first thing I could think of to get her out of here,” I lie. “She probably doesn’t even know what I was talking about.”
Timofey doesn’t react, but his silence is loaded. He knows I’m full of shit. And he knows I know that he knows I’m full of shit.
Which is why he continues into his own story without preamble.
“I had a foster father who locked us in the broom closet when we were bad.”
I go perfectly still. Why is he telling me this? Is it real? It can’t be. It’s just another trick. Another manipulation.
But when I glance over, the look on his face seems earnest. I see the sharpness in his green eyes. The anger. The pain of authentic memory.
“Being ‘bad’ in that house didn’t require much.” He shakes his head and scoffs. “If he was in a mood, anything could set him off. I was locked in the closet for two days once because I dropped a cracker on the floor. He didn’t even give me a chance to grab it before he snatched me up and shoved me in the closet. When that lock clicked, I thought I would die in there.”
“I thought you weren’t scared of anything.” It’s a low blow, but I don’t know how to respond to this vulnerable side of Timofey. I don’t want to fall for another trick.
“I’m not now. I was then.”
His words are heartbreakingly haunted. My job as a CPS agent is to protect children. It’s to give them the best shot at a childhood, at a safe, healthy life. But we don’t always get it right. The system has cracks, and sometimes, kids slip through them.
Was Timofey one of those?
My heart shatters at the thought of the frightened little boy he once was. “I’m sorry you went through that,” I murmur.
He shrugs. “I’m not special. Plenty of people deal with shit. The same way I suspect you did.”
He looks at me straight on, and I can’t hide under that gaze. All I can do is look away.
This time, Timofey lets me.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” he says. “But I get it. Parents don’t always deserve to be parents.”
I bite back a bitter laugh. That, coming from the least deserving “parent” of all.
Thankfully, before he can read my thoughts, he once again grips my hips. I’m not thankful for that, per se, but it is a nice distraction.
His palms are warm through my thin shirt as he slides me off the counter and back onto my feet.
“I burnt my arm, not my leg,” I remind him as I brush his hands off of me. “I can walk.”
“Great. Then follow me.”
33
PIPER
I’m so focused on putting one foot in front of the other—without fainting from hunger and shock—that I don’t realize where I’m standing until Timofey is rifling through a set of drawers in front of me and I’m next to the biggest bed I’ve ever seen.
“Wait.” I spin around, eying the dark curtains, the warm golden floors, and the plush rug. I do my best not to look at the bed, but even in my peripherals, I can tell the duvet is luxurious and there is no shortage of pillows. “Is this your bedroom?”
“You showed me yours. It’s only fair I show you mine.”
“Since when do you care about fair?” A large painting hangs above the bed. It’s a smattering of abstract red flowers. Paint flows down from the petals in thick drips. It looks like blood. “Also, you broke into my room. I didn’t ‘show you’ anything.”
“You’re showing me a lot right now.” He turns around and throws something at my chest. I flail and still don’t manage to catch it. It bounces off of me and falls to the floor at my feet.
He rolls his eyes and walks over. He grabs it and then unfurls a shirt in front of me. “This is to cover up.”
I’m only aware of my half-clothed state every time Timofey looks at me. The rest of him might as well be stone. He’s unreadable.
