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I pause, looking around. “No…”
He draws up behind me, grabbing me by the shoulders, and turning me forty-five degrees. “We came from this way.”
I blink. “How do you know that?” My voice is distant even to my own ears, as all my attention seems to home in on the heavy, warm weight of his hands, and the broad, hard chest pressed along my spine, radiating heat like a furnace.
He smells like the earth. Heady. Musky.Manly.
He huffs a short laugh that has my hackles instantly rising. “Not my first hike, kid,” he says roughly.
And then he’s gone, taking his sweltering heat and scent that shouldn’t smell good at all with him.
I scowl, mentally shaking off whateverthatwas. “Not a kid. And it’s not mine either.”
He says nothing, but I feel the skepticism rolling off him in waves. Turning to face him, I cross my arms and lift my chin. “It’s not.”
“Sure,” he murmurs, shouldering his way past me. He doesn’t so much as spare me a glance.
“It’s not.”
“Uh huh.” He grabs the stick he must’ve dropped to catch me, twirls it in his hand to gather a better grip on it, and slices through a cluster of bushes.
Fisting my hands at my sides, I stomp forward. “It’s. Not,” I grit out as flashes of Montana flash through my eyes. A chill works through me, creeping down my arms, standing up the little hairs.
Endless woods.
Mountains as far as the eye can see.
It’s cold…
So…
Cold…
Then suddenly it’s not Montana anymore, but a windowless room in the basement of Canaan Academy.
Pitch black.
Ice cold.
An incessant, high-pitched buzzing fills the room, quiet at first, then louder—sharper.
“Let us pray,” a deep voice warbles over the loudspeaker, crackling through the piercing ringing.
I squeeze my hands over my ears and scream—
That irritation from before surges forward once more, blackening out my vision, and before I know it, I find myself lunging forward and shoving Nolan in the back.
Nolan’s not exactly built like a tank, but he’s far sturdier than I expected. Still, I catch him off-guard enough that he stumbles forward.
Quickly catching himself, he whips around, eyes blazing. “What the fuck?”
Stomping forward, I shove my trembling finger in his chest, right over his sternum—hard. “You havenoidea what I’ve been through.” The words wrench out of me, surprising both of us.
His eyes widen, mirroring mine, and like always during a confrontation, my voice cracks, fading, my tongue…swelling, as I’m being pulled back into my body.
“You don’t know me,” I say forcefully. Again I jab him in the chest. Harder this time. I have to push up on my toes to meet him nose to nose, desperate to get it out—get it all out—before I clam up completely. “You don’t have a clue.This is—” My voice chokes off with a silent gasp and I shake my head in frustration.
I go to jab him again—the only thing I’m capable of when the words won’t come—when a warm, calloused hand encloses over mine, holding my finger to his chest.
