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Huh. Is he talking to me?
“So fucking brilliant, Hawk,” he goes on, his voice rising and falling. “Got yourself into this goddamn mess. But it wasn’t for nothing, dammit. You rattled him. Just need a bit more…”
What is he talking about?
“Hey, Hawk,” I mutter, and I mean, I’m pretty close to him. He’s close enough I can see the flecks of dried blood on his shirt and the fresh ones. I can see the muscles bunching in his arm as he pushes himself up and climbs unsteadily to his feet.
“Storm said it wouldn’t work, but what does he know, right?” He waves a hand in the air, clenches it into a fist and sighs. “Goddammit, she has to make it out safely. Has to. I couldn’t fucking bear it…”
Is he referring to me?
Something warm unfurls in my heart.
“Hawk,” I say again, quietly, but come on, there’s no other sound in the whole basement.
And still he doesn’t turn. He tucks his hair behind his ears, wraps an arm around his middle, and limps toward the tray of food that’s left on the floor.
My heart pounding in my head, I get back on my feet, wincing only slightly, and take a step toward him. Then another, and another, until I touch his arm.
“Fuck!” He whirls around and stumbles backward, a fist cocked back, ready to fly. His eyes are round like saucers. “What the hell? Didn’t you leave?”
“Hawk.” I lift my hands and step back, too, incredulous.
The shock on his face is genuine.
He didn’t hear me.
Oh my God, it’s true. He can’t hear. Or can’t hear well?
And that’s just one of the things I’ve figured out in the past five minutes.
The other is that I should trust my instincts.
Hawk is hiding something. He’s here for a reason other than what he says, and I’m not done here—or with him—yet.
***
“Since when have you had trouble hearing?” I shove him gently back down to the floor, and he lets me, his eyes wide. “Is it why you’ve let your hair grow so long? To hide the hearing aid?”
He says nothing, his mouth flattening, eyes sparking with annoyance.
Ah. So I’m right. I need to get to the bottom of this—and I’m not just talking about the deafness matter.
“You let it grow. Didn’t cut it after that accident you had with the motorcycle. You said you weren’t hurt. Hawk…”
He frowns when I settle beside him and give him the tray. If this is the first food he was given in God knows how many days, he has to be starving—but he glares at the bowl of some sort of stew, long gone cold, and clutches the sides of the tray.
“Why is it a big secret?” I press on. “Why can’t you just—”
“I hit my head.” His words drop between us like stones. “Wasn’t too bad. But I’d already lost some hearing years back. When I lived with my grandfather, some sort of viral infection, and now it got worse. But I’m not deaf, okay? I can still hear.”
“I know, so what’s the big deal? Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
He shrugs and winces. “Wasn’t important.”
Yeah, right. I want to grab his shoulders and shake him until he opens up at last and tells me some truths, but I’m not sure it will help right now.
“What plan were you talking about earlier?”
