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His eyes narrowed infinitesimally and something grim and knowing flicked across them. “I don’t judge people by their scars. That’s another thing I don’t ask payment for.”
I frowned and began to studyhim. There was a depth that I had recognized earlier as profound intelligence in his eyes, but it was more than that. His eyes were the eyes of someone who had seen something they shouldn’t have. I had come to know many cops, doctors, and psychologists as a result of my dark past and I’d seen things similar, but not like Frost. Those eyes of molten ice were undeniably haunted, not so different from the dark brown eyes I knew from the mirror. “You’re not like most people, Frost.”
Something about the line of his jaw became guarded and in an eerie sort of moment, I recognized what my expression must often look like when people asked me questions I didn’t want to answer. It was strange being on the other side of a steel door slamming shut. “I could say the same about you, Poe.”
“I know,” I said, my voice soft and cautious. I felt like this young man with the strange blue eyes was not such a stranger anymore. It no longer seemed important that I did not know his first name. I knew that he was much more like me than he let on, that, perhaps, he was almost as broken as I was. I hesitated, the wheels turning in my mind as I contemplated what to do now. Fear curled around me like black smoke, choking me and replacing the oxygen in my veins, pumping death into every one of my cells. I couldn’t breathe out of fear as the tension in the room grew.
He was only inches from me. I hadn’t realized it until now, but his knee was almost touching mine, his shoulders were twisted to face me head-on and his chest was only about four inches from my shoulder. His arm, draped over the back of the couch, was even closer. There was the soft, warm scent of his skin and a gentle but intoxicating cologne in the air. It was quiet and anything but imposing, almost like the nearly non-existent but sweet, warm scent of cookie dough, and it made my stomach ache in a not-unpleasant way. His face, those brilliant eyes, those soft, gentle lips, could only be six, perhaps seven inches from my own. I wanted him to kiss me, to hold my hand, to wrap those strong arms around me. I wanted his lips on mine more than I’d ever wanted anything. I had only met him yesterday and I wanted everything about him.
And yet…
That fear, that smoke, choked me, drowned me, was suffocating, killing me. I could feel it in the air, hot, chalky, and wholly tangible around me. In my head, I could hear malicious laughter, the cackling I knew only too well from my most awful nightmares.
Tears rose in my eyes again and I turned away from him, still not breathing, trying to hide my terror at the thought of wanting him. “Poe?” he whispered, his voice like the fluttering of a feather through a spring breeze. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I swallowed hard, trying to bottle my emotions back up again. “Fine. Sorry,” I said tightly. I grimaced as my stomach cramped back up with the tension in my chest. My thin, bony fingers clenched into fists and I dug them into my torso, trying to rub out the pain even as I marveled at how tiny my hands had gotten. My hands had always been very small; Mrs. Aaron, my foster-mother, liked to claim they were cherubic. But in the past several years, they had gotten so thin that my knuckles stood out and the joints looked almost arthritic I was so thin. Vaguely, I wondered how much weight I had lost since I’d been broken the last time. I refused to go to a doctor and didn’t own a scale. I imagined I had lost around twenty pounds, though, and there really hadn’t been much of me to lose to begin with.
Suddenly, warmth fell upon my clenched fists and I froze, staring down through my tears at Frost’s hands cupping mine. After a long moment, I met his gaze cautiously, fearfully. There was nothing but sadness and sympathy in those molten eyes. No hurt that I was pushing him away, no fear of who I might be, no pity for what he guessed had been done to me, no gentle distance as he planned which psychologist to refer me to. He knew more than he deserved. A man that inherently good did not deserve to understand and sympathize with my pain. He didn’t deserve something that awful. “What can I do?” he whispered.
I shivered. The warring sides of my soul, the side that wanted life and the side that wanted safety, were burning me alive inside. I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know what I needed. I didn’t know anything.
“I’ll stay until you ask me to leave. I won’t ask any questions. I won’t say anything unless you want me to,” he vowed seriously, trying to reassure me. I nodded mutely, still scared, still mortified at the side of me that he was seeing. No one knew this part of me. Not even my foster-mother. I didn’t let anyone see this, ever.
So, we just sat there in silence, Frost facing forward now, his spiked blond hair leaned back against the couch, his blue eyes shut. My heart beat uncontrollably with the remaining fear, the remnants of my nightmares still echoing through my head, but slowly, gradually, my pulse began to slow to a more even rhythm. Gradually, the fear and confusion ceased.
Once I was certain that my sanity was no longer in jeopardy, I asked him timidly, “So you’re a homicide detective?”
“Mm-hm,” he intoned, not opening his eyes yet. Despite how deranged he no doubt thought I was, he seemed perfectly at ease, almost on the verge of falling asleep. “Does that bother you?”
“No,” I frowned. “Does it bother other people?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “It bothers my family. Most of them are just worried about me, as if I’m chasing killers without a service weapon.”
“Most?Not all?”
His mouth tightened with displeasure at the thought. “My father wanted me to be a surgeon, like him. I was always good in school. Smart, I guess. He insisted I would do well in medical school and be as successful as him. I said that smart people make good homicide detectives too. He wishes I’d chosen differently.”
“Do you still talk to him?”
He nodded vaguely. “I come home once a week for dinner as a family. We small-talk, but that’s all. There’s always this underlying tension. He’s kind of passive-aggressive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. I’m happy as a detective.” Frost smiled jokingly and opened his eyes to look at me, the blue ice in them sparkling. “What about you, Miss Poe? Did your family tell you there are better things than Starbucks and a library computer?”
I felt the muscles in my jaw tighten and I bit my tongue to hold back a wince. “Actually, my foster-parents told me things like that many, many times.”
The tension immediately exploded once more around us. Frost hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I won’t ask if you don’t want to tell me.”
I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “It’s been a long time. When I was two, my family died and left me to my mother’s good friend and her husband. There isn’t too much to tell.”
“Car accident?”
I swallowed to compose myself and, after a moment, I met his gaze steadily and replied, “Unnamed fatal disease. My mother died first, but before she went, it passed to my father, brother and sister. They were all gone in the course of Christmas week. I thought everyone in Baltimore knew the story. Honestly, it’s nice to be proven wrong.”
He frowned deeply. “You survived?”
I turned away, shrugging once more. “I guess I was never infected. A two-year-old couldn’t possibly have the strength to fight something like that off.”
