Page 15 of Born into Darkness

His fingers caress my cheek before he gently taps my lips. “Please eat it.”

I want to argue, but I know it won’t do any good. When I open my mouth and eat the bite he’s given me, he looks relieved.

“I wish I could take care of you better,” he confesses. “Every instinct I have is demanding I keep you safe, and it kills me that I’m helpless to do anything about it.”

“You make me feel safe,” I admit. I give him a small smile. “I know it sounds shitty, but I’m really glad you’re here with me.”

He gives a soft laugh and runs his thumb over my cheek. “Me too. Although, I kind of wish we’d met in a coffeeshop or something equally boring and safe.”

“You would’ve had to come to Oregon for that to happen,” I remind him.

He gestures around at our dungeon. “I guess Hotel Shithole was destined to be our meet cute.”

“How do you know what a meet cute is?” I ask with a laugh.

“I have female cousins. I hear them talking about their books, and I pay attention.”

“I’m impressed.”

Grabbing his bottle of water, he gives me a grin before taking a drink. When he’s done, he hands me his bottle.

“We can share this one and save the other.” I see the amusement in his grey eyes when he adds, “Unless you think I have germs.”

I grab the bottle and take a drink. “I’m pretty sure your mouth is one of the cleanest things in this room.”

We pass the water back and forth, both of us sating our thirst enough to get us through the next few hours.

“When we get out of here, I’m going to drink a gallon of water,” I say, and then add, “And eat a really big pizza. What about you?”

He leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. “After I drink a gallon of water, I want a vanilla milkshake and a greasy cheeseburger and fries, but a pizza sounds good, too.”

I lean back next to him and nudge his shoulder. “Maybe I’ll share mine with you.”

He blinks an eye open and looks at me without lifting his head up. “And maybe I’ll share my fries with you.”

“But not your cheeseburger, huh?”

Grinning, he says, “I’ll half it with you.”

We sit in a comfortable silence, the side of my body pressed against his, and wait. There’s no way they’re going to let us have the lights on all day. They enjoy torturing us way too much to do that.

Max voices exactly what I’m thinking when he says, “I want to close my eyes and sleep, but I don’t want to waste the light. The fuckers never leave it on.”

I lean my head against his shoulder and smile when he takes my hand in his. His thumb runs over the back of my hand as he says, “Teach me some sign language. I want to be able to talk to your brother.”

I’m touched that he cares enough to want to learn, but I try not to read too much into it as I slowly teach him how to fingerspell the alphabet. We’ve formed an attachment, that was bound to happen, but just because he feels something for me now doesn’t mean he’ll still feel something once we’re out of here and we’ve gone back to our normal lives.

“You’re a fast learner,” I tell him when he quickly masters the alphabet and starts to spell words out. He hasn’t developed the speed yet, but it’s still impressive.

“I have a pretty good memory,” he says. “Must be all the music I memorized as a kid.”

“Something tells me you’ve just always been smart.”

“My brother’s the smart one,” he says, and there’s no jealousy in his tone, just pride and an obvious love. “You’ll like him.”

“You want me to meet your family?”

He fingerspells yes, and I grin like an idiot before showing him the sign for yes and no. Repeating the sign, he moves his fist up and down like he’s knocking on a door while he says, “Yes, I want you to meet my family.”

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