Page 56 of Sanctuary

Still me.

I don’t know what Del saw in me just now. And I don’t know what Aidan sees every time he looks at me—what makes him soften, deepen, let down his guard.

I can understand why a man might want to fuck me. I have the kind of body a lot of them like the most. But otherwise…

I really don’t know.

Shaking away the poignant reflections, since they’re not at all like me, I turn away from the mirror, decide to tackle my laundry tomorrow morning, and then leave the room to join Del in the kitchen.

She’s finishing up her cleaning of the floor, so I kneel down to help her.

“You don’t have to do that,” she tells me. “You must be exhausted.”

“I am tired, but not too tired to do a chore or two.”

She looks like she’s about to ask a question but must change her mind. We work on the floor for about twenty minutes until it’s completely scrubbed. Then we pour ourselves glasses of water and take them outside to sit on the porch.

It’s midafternoon, so it’s the warmest part of the day. The sun is breaking out from big gray clouds, and the air is cool and comfortable.

It feels good to sit down. Good to be with my sister again.

She’s the only home I’ve had for eight years.

“So tell me what’s happened,” she says softly after a couple of minutes.

So I do. I start the story at the beginning, explaining everything that’s happened for the past weeks. She stiffens when I describe how Aidan chased me for the package. She’s intrigued by my encounter with Maria and her group of warrior women. She gasps when I explain about the competition Agatha engineered between me and Aidan.

And she’s visibly upset when I try to minimize the danger to me on the trek up the mountain and my treacherous crawl across the bridge.

I’m pretty sure she suspects what’s going to happen next. She grows still. Quiet. Listening without comment.

I tell her about Aidan saving me on the bridge. About how I helped him push his cart up the mountain. About my leg getting injured and how he carried me to the church in the storm.

After I get to the part where I warmed up from the wood stove, I trail off. Strangely embarrassed. Uncertain of how to explain what happened next.

“Breanna?” she prompts, her brown eyes wide. Slightly wary. “What happened between you and Aidan?”

“I…” I break into a little cough. “He… We…”

I’m not the kind of person who gets embarrassed like this. I’ve tackled uncomfortable topics with Del—including my decisions to let men fuck me—without flinching.

“You got closer?” she asks, strangely gentle, as if she’s worried she’ll overstep. Spook me.

“Yes. We were trapped together for four days. The snow was too high to get out, and my leg needed to heal enough to walk.”

“So you got to know each other? Understand each other?”

I nod, glancing away.

“Did he make a move on you, Breeana?”

I suck in a sharp breath and turn back. “No. He never did. He didn’t want to pressure me. But we… we did have sex.”

There. I kind of blurted it out, but it feels better to get it said.

Del doesn’t look surprised. “And what… what was it like? I mean, you actually wanted it, right?”

“Yes. I wanted it. It was the first time I ever…”

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