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“Me? Never,” I gasp in feigned indignation.
“So, going back to the destruction, what exactly do you have in mind for the bunker?”
I sigh and focus on the road, wishing she hadn’t caught on so quickly. “Since we have to get in and out of there quickly, I’m thinking we use our time to set up explosives instead and watch the whole place burn.”
“That’s an idea,” she huffs in amusement. Her brows furrow as she watches me, as though she’s trying to figure out if I’m serious.
“I’m serious.” I cock a brow in challenge, my gaze flitting between her and the road ahead. The only other sign of life around us is the faint glow of the headlights in the rearview mirror from the other van.
“Okay.” She leans back in her seat. “So the others create the distraction, and we go in, lay the explosives, and then get far enough away that we can detonate the charge while giving us enough of a head start that we’ll be able to get out with only ten minutes between us and their backup.”
“Yup, plus that will give the others the chance to get away too, since their attention will be on the storage bunker,” I explain. I’m unable to help the grin spreading across my lips as I imagine the building ablaze—the perfect retaliation for their ill-gotten gains.
“That’s probably the best plan then,” she agrees, determination in her golden eyes as she turns to me. “Can I ask you a question, though?”
“Of course.”
“Why is destruction your specialty? And why do you have a connection to fire?”
My smile falls as the question leaves her lips. I honestly don’t know what I expected her to ask, but it sure as hell wasn’t that. I swallow thickly and search her face, not seeing any trace of judgment or pity, only concern and curiosity.
“That’s two questions,” I say with an uneasy chuckle, wishing I could just avoid the subject altogether.
My lips part, wanting to spill the deepest darkest secrets unlocked inside my soul, but they just won’t come out. The words are stuck in my throat, suffocating me, threatening to choke out my consciousness. Black creeps at the edges of my vision as my heart thunders in my chest, and I take a deep breath and another, desperately trying to chase away the vise-like grip of panic clawing at my insides.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Skylar says, her voice like a cool wave washing over me, helping the anxious energy thrumming through me to recede. “Zeke didn’t tell me the specifics, but I get that there may be things from your past that you aren’t ready to bring up just yet.”
She reaches out a hesitant hand and lets it rest on my thigh. That simple gesture gives me more comfort than she knows, and I relish the feel of her warm palm chasing the anxiety away. We let the silence stretch between us as the tension eases away bit by bit, just from the reassurance of her presence by my side.
“I pushed my grief down for years about my mother,” she says, her fingers lightly gripping my thigh like she, too, needs my strength for this. I slip one hand off the wheel and place it atop hers, squeezing it gently.
Skylar takes a deep breath, giving me an appreciative smile before she continues. “At sixteen, I snuck out to go to a party, and I called my mom to pick me up,” she says, staring out the window as though it’s a different road she sees in her memory. “She was hit by a drunk driver on her way to get me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I breathe, squeezing her hand tighter. She nods but lets the silence stretch on. I trail my thumb over the back of her hand, wanting to do whatever I can to comfort her without rushing her.
“I blamed myself for a long time and isolated myself in New York, refusing to deal with the guilt and grief until I got back here, and it threatened to drown me with all the memories that came rushing back up to the surface.”
Her shoulders lose some of the rigid tension that had kept them stiff with that admission, and she turns to face me fully.
“It doesn’t go away. I understand that now. It never will, but it’s up to us how we deal with it—if that grief will threaten to consume every waking minute of our lives, or if it will be in our hearts, a memory of their life to carry with us and make us stronger.”
Her eyes glisten with unshed tears, but the hope that’s been ignited in them warms my heart, giving me the courage to unleash the pain caged within my own.
I pull in a deep breath, grateful for the drive to distract me from the full intensity of the story and the huge step of baring my soul to my mate.
“We lived on the outskirts of a pack in a community of shifters,” I say, the open road ahead of me like a clearing of barriers around my heart. “My father was ousted as a child because he was an alpha. So his family left and joined the human world while living amongst a small community of other exiled shifters.”
My stomach twists, but I swallow back the uncertainty, letting the pulsing connection between us strengthen me. She bared her heart to me, showed me her scars, and if I want this mate bond to work, she needs to see all of me.
“The alpha of the pack kept an eye on my father throughout the years, and when he caught word of my father beginning to form his own pack, he got scared and came after us.”
Skylar turns her hand to grip mine, as though she instinctively knows I’ll need her comfort for this part especially, and I squeeze hers back.
“The alpha and his betas came to our house and barricaded the doors and set the house on fire with my parents still inside,” I say, swallowing down the bile as memories of that night swoop in, assaulting me like I’m still that boy standing before the blaze in my pajamas, my throat raw from the screams that refuse to stop. “I was at a friend’s house that night, but I remember waking up and rushing outside, like I already knew, like I felt them leaving me.”
“Arsenio,” she soothes, my name on my lips like a prayer, giving me the strength to continue.
“The fire department was already there, but they hadn’t put the fire out yet.” I shudder slightly. “I can still remember the way the flames danced, the oranges, reds, and yellows, the face of death and destruction that haunted my nightmares for years to come.”
