Page 12 of Whispers of the Dead

“That’s a hell of a promise to make,” Zoey says, though her tone sounds like she doesn’t believe him. She stops fidgeting with the hem of her shirt and drags her palms absently along her arm.

That’s when I see the growing discoloration. “Come over here.”

She hesitates. Her eyes dart toward the shadows that engulf me, searching for something she can’t see. Then she sits up and crawls forward. The closer she gets, the more Ican see her electric blue eyes, and the hesitation, wariness, and exhaustion that swirls within.

“Over here?” she asks, her voice uncertain while she peers around my dark cell. Her hands brush against the bars before her fingers curl around them.

With mute movement, I move closer until I’m right in front of her. She’s looks directly at me, mere inches away, and she doesn’t even know it. I take advantage of these few moments to study her. Her face, her golden hair, all the way down to the growing bruises on her arm in the shape of fingerprints. The curve of her cheek, and the hope still shining in her eyes.

“Yes,” I say with a softness I haven’t felt in a long time.

She startles at my closeness and her breath catches. Her gaze shoots straight at me. We’re eye level now. Well, almost. She’s still a couple of inches shorter than me, even when sitting down, yet she has the confidence of someone twice her size.

Her breath fans against my face, and for the first time in months, I realize how close I am to another human being. Other than fighting our dreg captors, I haven’t touched another human being since being thrown in here. Not in a way that I wasn’t trying to kill them.

I reach a hand through the bars. The light from her window barely reaches over here. The edges of it are only enough to illuminate her without touching the darkness in which I reside. So when my hand appears in front of her face, she gasps. “You’re real.”

That makes me chuckle. “Of course I’m real, golden girl.”

“Golden girl?” She arches a brow.

I take a few strands of her hand and run it between my fingers. It almost looks wrong to see my palm skim against her vibrant hair. “Your hair. It’s like strands of gold.” I smirk. “You’re the first exciting thing to happen here since the day a wasp found its way in.”

“A wasp?”

“Yeah. Stung Damon on the ass, and he’s been a real pain ever since.”

“It did not,” Damon calls out, making Zoey laugh.

She doesn’t pull away when my fingers trail across her cheek. So soft. Warm. My fingers curl in and knuckles brush against the curve of her jawline. To my surprise, she leans into my touch and sighs.

Fuck.

My fingers twitch, and for a second, I almost pull her closer.

Almost.

“It’s not fair,” she says.

“What isn’t fair?”

“All of you can see me.” She tilts her head. “But I can’t see you.”

I exhale through my nose and spread my fingers against the smooth curve of her cheekbone. I’m tempted to pull her against the bars and kiss her. To see if her lips are as soft as her skin.

The sound of scraping concrete comes from Cole’s cell. It’s a subtle, low noise, but it’s enough to break the moment. My hand falls away from her face and trails along her arm. She flinches when my fingers brush against the fingerprint bruises, and my stomach hardens. “Hey…” I say, my voice thick.

Zoey pulls back and covers the bruises with her other hand. “It’s fine.”

The metal bars on Damon’s side rattle. Damon’s voice is razor sharp. “What’s not fine?”

Zoey stiffens. “I said it’s fine.”

“Yeah, I heard you. What’s not fine?”

“Yeah, and I’m a world-class chef,” I retort. “Come on, golden girl. Humor me. What’s the worst that can happen?”

She hesitates, then lets out a sigh and extends her arminto the light so the bruises are in plain view. I rest my palm along the back of her arm, tilting it toward the dim light streaming in from her window to get a better look. It’s a good thing the other two guys can’t see this. The sight of the deep, ugly splotches that run from her forearm to her elbow makes me, the least violent of the three of us, want to murder every other person on this godforsaken planet. It takes everything in me to not slam my fist into the bars.

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