Page 62 of Liar Byrd
And then I feel it. A hand. Large. Slightly calloused, slipping around the back of my neck, under my hair. It grounds me in the present when I want to crawl somewhere dark, curl up in a ball, and never leave whatever sanctuary I can carve out for myself.
“Breathe, darlin’. I can kill whatever hurts you, but I can’t breathe for you.Breathe.” His warm breath stirs the hair around my face.
I drag air into my lungs, my eyes fused to his as he nods, pleased. “Again.”
I do it again.
And again.
The tiny pinpricks of light dancing across my vision fade one by one, and the sickness in my belly lessens.
I don’t know what he sees in my eyes for him to draw me slowly, inexorably toward him until I have my face against his chest. His heart is pounding a beat that’s almost as angry as his growl. “Tell me who did this to you, and they won’t live long enough to do it again.”
Maybe it's the certainty, the utter promise in his voice, that keeps me pressed against his chest, breathing in his lemon, leather, and clean linen scent as I fist the bottom of his shirt.
Slowly, reluctantly, I release my death-grip on his shirt and lean away.
His eyes lazily roam my face. His fingers are gentle when he tucks strands of my hair behind my ear. I never did find a hair tie, so I braid my hair in the morning. By the end of the day, my braid has come loose, and I have a weird half-up, half-down situation going on that makes me look ridiculous.
“You feeling any better?”
My eyes drift over his shoulder. Makhi isn’t there.
“I asked him to give us a bit of time. Thought you might not appreciate having an observer.”
My gaze finds Vonn again, and I swallow hard. I thought escaping from Jeremiah would make me stronger, but I feel weaker instead. Fainting, panicking for no reason... I didn’t do any of that before. The world was a terrible place then. But since I got out, it feels as if it’s crushing me.
He gives me another searching look and then slips his hand into the neck of his shirt, pulls something out that jangles, and lifts it over his head. “Here.”
He slips it over my head before I know what it is.
“My dog tags,” he explains.
I look at the two oval, flat pieces of dull metal attached to a long silver chain. I’ve never seen them this close before, only in a war movie on TV when I had a TV to watch.
Bower, Vonn. AB RhD negative. 88903610
The name and blood type make sense. The string of numbers is meaningless to me. His army identification numbers, maybe?
I lift my gaze, confused. “Why are you giving it to me?”
“Borrowing them,” he says with a smile tinged with sadness. “I learned to grip it tight, find my strength in it during the hardest times I’ve ever known. If you ever need more strength and I’m not there, you take it from that.”
That’s when I decide not all big men are the devil out to destroy me.
My eyes prick with tears as I whisper, “Thank you. I’ll take care of it.”
“No cleaning it,” he says with a brighter smile than the one from before. “Makhi told me about his bike, and I don’t want to find you polishing the thing ‘cause you’re bored.” The finger he wags at me is so playful that it’s the hardest it's ever been to tamp down my smile.
“I won’t polish it,” I promise.
He nods. “Now. How about you let me do something about this ankle? Makhi is downstairs sorting out the den.”
“He is?”
“I figured he could make himself more useful rather than flashing you.”
My smile, when it comes, is small. Wobbly and strange. But it’s real. “Okay.”
