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My lips part. "I can't hear you."
He flinches as if I yelled. Then his lips move. "Why?"
I lift my hand and unsteadily point at my ear. "Whatever that metal scraping noise was made my eardrums burst. Don't worry, though; I'll heal."
At least, I hope. I don't say that aloud, though.
A frown forms on his face as he eyes me. Then he extends his hand toward me. I slip my fingers through his, and he easily lifts me to my feet as if I weigh nothing. When his fingers leave mine, he brings his hands to my shoulders and rests his forehead against mine.
Can you hear me? His voice fills my head.
I jump, startled, and he starts to pull back, but I put a hand on his hip and guide him back to me.
Yeah, I can hear you, I think, hoping his ability is a two-way street.
He shuts his eyes. Are you okay?
My ears hurt a little bit, but other than that, I think I'm okay.
Good. I think we should be okay for a while.
Why? Where did the Orders go?
They ran away because of that noise you heard, he explains
What was that noise? I ask.
A noise I learned to make when I was very young. My mom taught it to me after our house was raided by Orders. Told me if I ever needed to send a bunch of them away to make the noise. His breath dusts across my cheeks, tickling my skin, and my fingers on his hips twitch, skimming the strip of flesh right above his pants.
A shiver rolls over me, and not necessarily in a bad way. The strange, new sensation sends warmth over my skin and, not knowing how to react, my body shudders again.
You're shivering. Blaise pulls back to look me in the eye, placing his fingers on my temple. Are you sure you're not hurt?
I nod, my cheeks heating for reasons I can't comprehend. I'm fine.
He studies me with a pucker forming at his brow, and I squirm under his scrutiny, again for reasons I don't understand. Or maybe I sort of do, but I'm just confused.
My thoughts wander to the guy I once thought I loved, who later found out what I was and hunted me. From what I can remember, I shivered this way around him whenever he touched me or looked at me a certain way. I liked the feeling at the time, but loathed it after he crushed my heart.
Heartbreak ... I know that feeling.
Blaise presses his lips together.
My eyes pop wide. Did he just hear that?
We should probably go before the Orders come back, Blaise pushes his voice into my head again. I'm going to move my fingers away from your head. If you need anything, just tap me on the arm, okay?
When I nod, he walks toward the front of the bus. I follow, moving slowly as I cautiously step over the dead bodies and glass all over the floor. With every step, my ears pulsate with pain, but I keep a straight face every time Blaise looks back at me, not wanting to worry him.
When he reaches the door, he picks up the seats and tosses them out the broken windshield. Then he bashes the door open with his foot, hops outside, and motions for me to come down.
I trot down the tilted stairway and stop at his side, grabbing his arm.
Now what? I ask tensely, looking around at the glass on the ground and the upside-down vehicles.
He presses his fingers to the side of my head. Now we try to find a place to lay low until Reece pulls us out of here. We can also look around and see if you can remember anything, but only if we're careful.
When I nod, he moves his fingers away and steps back. He doesn't offer me his hand as he starts up the road in the direction we were before we were attacked by the Orders. I find the move a bit strange, since he's been holding my hand most of the time we've been here. He's probably on overload from all the touching we did while rolling around on the bus's floor.
Telling myself not to look too much into his behavior, I jog to catch up with him. Then we walk side by side, our guard up, as we zigzag around broken down vehicles and the occasional dead body.
The sky gradually begins to shift from a grimy grey to a pastel orange pink, illuminating the land with a sunset glow. The sight would be breathtaking, except for the corpses lying in the road, in the cars, and on the sidewalks.
I try my best not to look at the dead bodies, but the air reeks of rotting meat left out in the sun for days. The smell makes my eyes water and my soul ache. So much death in this place. So much pain. So much destruction.
Caused by you.
The voice that nudges into my thoughts isn't my own, yet I've heard it many, many times before. Like most things, I can't place from where.
Who are you? I silently whisper.
My only response is soundlessness.
Sighing, I fix my concentration of the collapsed stores and office buildings surrounding us. The feeling that I'm being watched creeps up on me again.
I think we're being watched, I tell Blaise once I hop over a tipped-over shopping cart and lightly touch his arm.
He inches closer to me until his shoulder touches mine. Then he reaches around and places his finger to my temple. I think so, too. Keep an eye out for anything that looks out of the ordinary.
I nod, questioning what is considered unordinary since everything about this world feels different.
We continue hiking up the road, on edge, and remaining fairly quiet since I can't hear. A thousand questions burn at the tip of my tongue. I want to ask him where we are heading, how long before the Orders come back, how long does he think we'll be in here.
After what feels like an eternity, my hearing sluggishly returns, starting with the intake of my breath to the thudding of my clunky boots hitting the pavement, then to Blaise singing.
Wait? Blaise is singing?
He has an amazing voice, soft and soothing, and the tragically, sexy and beautiful lyrics make my stomach do weird kickflips. I listen for a while, feeling a tad guilty for eavesdropping, but not enough to declare the regrowth of my eardrums and ruin the moment.
"You can hear again, can't you?" he announces, cutting off the song mid-chorus.
"What? No." Warmth spreads across my cheeks as I realize that in my answer, I've outed my lie.
He glances at me, the light of the sunset glinting against the piercings in his face. "For how long?"
"I don't know ... Only, like, five minutes or so ..." I pull a guilty face. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything. It's just ... your singing made me feel calmer than I have in a while."
He slows down, whirls around, and walks backward in front of me. "You know, if someone else had spied on me while I was singing, I'd probably put them in a headlock."
I slow down before I run into him. "Are you going to put me in a headlock?"
"You don't sound the slightest bit afraid of the idea," he says with a cock of his brow.
I sigh dramatically. "I thought we already established that I'm not afraid of you, just like you're apparently not afraid of me."
He comes to a stop in front of two large, rusted trucks. "I'm not."
"I'm starting to believe you." I halt in front of him and fiddle with the zipper of my torn jacket. "So maybe you should start believing me when I say I'm not afraid of you."
His muscles flex as he folds his arms, the bronzed metal on his chest a shimmering gold against the fading sunlight. "You still aren't, even after what you heard on the bus?" His eyes are devoid of all emotion, his tone flat, but tension radiates from his body.
"Are you talking about what the Orders said?" I ask, and he nods. "Of course I'm not afraid of you. I don't really care what you are, Blaise, and I'd be a hypocrite if I did."
"You're not worse than me." He sinks down on the hood of a car and stares at a fallen billboard blocking the rustic, beamed entrance to a slender building. "You have no idea of all the stuff I've done ..." His throat muscles work as he swallows hard. "Horrible stuff."
"I could say the same thing to you," I say quietly. "I've seen--and heard--some stuff from my memories that makes me believe I was once an awful person."
His gaze sk
irts to mine, and the pain in his eyes causes my breath to hitch. "Allura ... I've killed people with my bare hands."
I swallow an uneven breath. "I think I have, too. And back on the bus ... when I wanted to ... drink your life ... If I went through with it, I probably would've killed you."
He shakes his head. "No, you wouldn't have."
"You don't know that for sure."
"Yes, I do."
Shame crushes my chest, and I lower my gaze to my feet. "Back when we were in the Forsaken tent ... when I tried to take that guy's life ... I think I once tried to do that when a guy kissed me. I have a feeling I have more memories like that locked away in my head." I glance around the desolate streets. "Maybe while we're in here, they'll come out."
He doesn't utter a word, and his silence makes me extremely nervous.
I start to look at him when he whispers, "I can prove it to you."
Confusion swirls in my mind. "What do you mean?"
An unsteady breath eases from his lips. "I mean, I can prove to you that you won't kill someone, even if you completely and utterly tempted to drink their life."
