Page 27 of The Wrong Man

I slip through the door on legs that feel like they might give out at any moment. The distance between the bathroom and the bed seems impossibly far, miles instead of meters. I stumble twice, catching myself on the wall, on the corner of a dresser. My vision is starting to blur at the edges, dark spots dancing in my peripheral vision.

Finally, I reach the bed. I don’t have the energy to pull back the covers properly, just collapse onto the mattress face first, my cheek pressing into the cool softness of the pillow. The sheets smell like cedar and sandalwood, like him, and some distant part of my brain insists I should be bothered by that.

I’m not. I’m too tired to be bothered by anything.

Sleep pulls me under before I can even think about getting beneath the blankets.

My dreams are disjointed and strange. Fragments of memory tangled with fever-bright hallucinations.

I’m in my bakery, but the ovens are full of screaming, and when I open them flames pour out that smell like blood. I’m running through endless corridors, chased by something I can’t see, my feet slipping on floors that turn to ice beneath me. I’m back in the darkness of that terrible room, but this time when the door opens, it’s Declan standing there, laughing, telling me this is what I deserve for being born wrong.

Then I’m small again. Seven years old and locked in the coat cupboard under the stairs. Declan’s voice through the door, telling me about the monsters that live in the dark, the ones with long fingers and sharp teeth that eat little boys who cry. I’m singing to myself, trying to drown out his words, but my voice keeps cracking and the darkness keeps pressing closer.

Aunt Moira finds me eventually. She always does. She wraps me in her arms and carries me to the kitchen and makes me hot chocolate with extra marshmallows. She smells like flour and vanilla and safety.

But when I look up at her face, it’s not Aunt Moira anymore. It’s him. Dark eyes and sharp cheekbones and that mouth that can look so cruel. He’s holding me like I’m something precious, and I don’t understand why that makes me want to cry.

Iwake to soft lighting and a cool, wet cloth pressed against my forehead.

For a moment, I don’t know where I am. The ceiling above me is unfamiliar, painted a soft white that seems to glow in the lamplight. My body feels strange, disconnected, like I’m floating slightly above the mattress rather than lying on it.

Then I turn my head and see him.

He’s sitting in a chair beside the bed, close enough to touch. His dark eyes are fixed on my face with an intensity that should frighten me, but I’m too foggy to feel much of anything. There’s a glass of water on the nightstand beside him, a glass of orange juice, and a bowl of something that steams gently in the warm air.

Soup, I realize. He’s brought me soup.

He looks different somehow. Still dangerous, still all sharp angles and coiled strength. But there’s something softer in the set of his shoulders. Something almost vulnerable in the way he’s watching me, like he’s afraid I might shatter if he breathes too hard.

“You’re awake,” he says, and his voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it. Gentle, almost. Concerned.

I try to speak, but my throat feels like it’s lined with sandpaper. All that comes out is a rough croak that doesn’t sound anything like words.

He reaches for the water glass immediately, one hand sliding behind my head to lift it slightly while the other brings the glass to my lips. His palm is warm against my skull, his fingers gentle as they cradle me. The touch is so careful, so unexpectedly tender, that something in my chest clenches painfully.

The water is cool and sweet, the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. I drink greedily, too thirsty to care that his fingers are tangled in my hair, that his face is inches from mine.

“Slowly,” he murmurs. “Small sips. You’ll make yourself sick.”

I force myself to slow down, taking the small sips he instructed. When the glass is half empty, he pulls it away and lowers my head back to the pillow. His hand lingers in my hair for just a moment before he withdraws it.

I miss the warmth immediately. Which is confusing and wrong and something I refuse to examine too closely.

“What...” I have to stop and swallow, my voice still rough but at least recognizable now. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Pneumonia, I think.” His jaw tightens, and something that looks like guilt flashes across his features. “A complication from the hypothermia. I should have warmed you up more thoroughly. Should have gotten you dry clothes sooner. Should have...” He stops himself, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is getting you better.”

The guilt in his voice is startling. Real. Not the performed regret of someone trying to manipulate me, but the raw self recrimination of someone who genuinely wishes they could undo what they’ve done.

I don’t know what to do with that.

He reaches for the bowl of soup, and I watch as he stirs it with a spoon. The movements are precise and careful.

Chicken soup, from the smell of it. The kind that comes from a can, nothing fancy, but my stomach growls at the scent of it.

“I don’t know your name,” I hear myself say. The words come out before I can stop them, floating up from somewhere beneath the fog of fever. “The man... Vinnie... he called you something, but I can’t remember.”

He pauses with the spoon halfway to my mouth, something unreadable flickering in his dark eyes. For a long moment he doesn’t answer, and I wonder if I’ve crossed some line I wasn’t supposed to cross.