Page 16 of Forged in Rain

“Yes.”

Looking into my eyes, he slowly nods, and I say, “Me too?”

Sighing, he runs his hands through his hair. “I don’t know.”

“Great,” I mutter. “Why would you willingly sign up for something like this?”

“It wasn’t a choice,” he says with a shrug.

“How?”

“My parents are a part of this life.”

“I thought your parents were dead?”

“They are . . . to me.”

“Oh,” I say, searching his eyes, which are disturbingly blank, but I ignore the pang in my chest because he doesn’t need my pity. He’s made it perfectly clear he doesn’t even need my love.

Curiously, I glance at Jig, and he smiles wide. “My parents are lawyers.”

“Uh . . .”

With no comment, because it’s the last thing I expected him to say, I turn to Bastion, who eyes me moodily. I look away since I expect him to ignore me, surprised when he says, “Foster kid.”

“And the hippie,” Jig says, wagging his brows at me.

Smiling, I lean back and say quietly, “My parents are the hippies.”

“And you?” Jig asks.

I can feel Cyn’s gaze on my cheek when I shrug and say, “Apparently, I’m a murderer.”

It’s painfully quiet for a moment before Jig says softly, “Some people deserve to die.”

“Yeah,” I whisper sadly, leaning my head against the glass.

I must doze because the next thing I know, we’re at the cabin, which is farther out than the rest of the places we usually go. Although curious, I don’t ask as I follow Bastion through the door and leave the other two at the car in a heated discussion.

Dropping down on the sofa wearily, I rub the back of my head and wince when a burst of pain ricochets through my skull. Apparently, Iris is a bit of a scrapper.

“Do you have any painkillers?” I ask the empty room because Bastion has disappeared.

Standing, I walk down the hall, stopping when I reach the bathroom where Cyn fucked me on the counter. Visions of his desperation claw through me, and ignoring the flush heating my system, I turn to Bastion and pause.

“Oh, sorry . . .” I say, my jaw dropping open.

Bastion is huge and thick, and if I weren’t so caught up on his skin, I might be drooling over his chest in the mirror, but all I can see are the scars. The thin marks on his back start at one shoulder and cover to the other before cascading down to his waist in silvery white lines.

Clearly, he was whipped, and I wonder by whom. Was it his parents or the people who took him in and should have cared for him when his own could not? Man, this is a fucked-up world.

“Did you want something?” he barks, and jumping, I meet his gaze in the mirror, shriveling under his feral glare.

“No, I . . . painkillers,” I trail off uncomfortably.

What happened to Bastion, and is this why he’s such a mean motherfucker?

Opening a cabinet door, he shoves the bottle in my hand as Cyn appears behind me and asks, coldly, “What’s going on?”

---