As they unloaded the trunk, she asked, “How can you be sure?”
“Because it’s mine. I used to come up here with Lexie and-”
“Your wife?”
He studied her for a long moment, his gaze leaden like a sky promising rain. “Yes. She came a few times, but she didn’t like it much. She didn’t enjoy the silence or the isolation.”
God, it hurt, knowing he had been married. Presumably he’d loved this other woman with all the fire and devotion she sensed in him, now tamped beneath layers of loss and heartbreak.
“Did you love her?” The question felt like it carried barbs, but she had to know.
“I thought so at the time. Now I think I just wanted to not be alone.”
There was no point in asking; he wouldn’t tell her. And yet she couldn’t resist. His mysteries were endless and alluring. “What was she like?”
But he surprised her.
“Sad,” he said at length.
“In what way?”
“Because her whole life was a lie, and I think on some level, she sensed it.”
“She didn’t know you, then.”
“No,” he said quietly. “Nobody ever did, until you.”
That gave her pause, arms laden with bags. “Not even your parents?”
“When I was a child, perhaps. But as I got older, my gift started affecting them, too.” He answered the unspoken question in her eyes. “No, they don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Where do they think you are? Living here like a hermit?”
“Not exactly.” His icy eyes went queer and distant, gazing over distant treetops as if into the past. “They think I died in that car accident. Everyone expected me to-”
“And your gift supplied the illusion,” she said in horror. “They couldn’t see you. But how did that work? You were hurt, and the staff thought you were dead…?”
“They simply stopped tending me. I left. My scars wouldn’t be so bad if I’d completed the course of treatment.”
Mia trailed him to the door, speechless in sympathy for what he’d suffered. She tried to imagine what it would be like to stand in the same room with your family and tell them desperately: I’m here. I’m not gone. Please look at me. While all the words fell on deaf ears. Knowing him as she did, he had probably crawled off, expecting to die and fulfill their expectations. Only he hadn’t. He couldn’t. Not until he avenged Lexie-and Søren had an incredibly fierce will. She wrapped her arms about him from behind and leaned her head between his shoulder blades.
Hopeless longing swelled within her; she wanted to learn everything about him, more than the way the hair curled at the nape of his neck when he sweated, the wry quirk of his smile, or the taste of his skin as he thrust inside her. She wanted-
More.
The ache intensified as he set the bags on the ground. She was so damn tired and confused. Her life might well be over, and her head hurt like a son of a bitch. The Aleve she’d taken had long since worn off.
As she watched, he popped the glass sconce from the exterior light and withdrew a key. This must be the place, because the door swung open when he used said key. Inside, the cabin smelled musty, long unused. It was all one room, modernized slightly with a tiny bathroom. Mia gave thanks for that.
Otherwise, the futon doubled as bed, and a handcrafted rocking chair sat in the corner. The low ceiling made the cabin feel cozy and safe. She saw his mother in the homey touches: the braided rag rug on the floor and the brown check curtains on the window.
“If they find us here,” he said, putting away the groceries, “then it means they know who I am.”
She unloaded her bag as well. Mmmm, beans. That will never get old. “Won’t they go after your family if they identify you?”
“It’s a risk. But the danger to them would be greater if I sought them out first.”
“Because someone may be watching them.”
“Yes.”
“But… how will they know it’s you?”
“Expectation, remember? It can work against me. If someone is watching for me, expecting me to show-”
“Then they recognize you.” Mia sighed. “That’s damned inconvenient.”
Søren offered a tired smile. “Tell me about it.”
“If it’s a woman on surveillance, you could kiss her. Make her forget you were ever there in the onslaught of dreams come true.”
“Somehow I doubt I would be permitted to get that close,” he said dryly. “Try not to worry, Mia. I’ve hidden here before when things got hot. My first few… excursions were neither well planned nor well executed. I simply took my pound of flesh.” The grim set of his mouth convinced her not to ask.
“So you needed a spot to lay low for a while.”
“There’s no electricity,” he went on. “So showers will be cold. And at night, we’ll use lanterns and candles. There should be a jug of kerosene around here.”
That was when she realized the stove was unlike others she’d seen before. It had a flat top, an oven with a weird crank handle, and a pipe venting out through the wall. To either side, there were simple shelves, where Søren was stacking the canned goods. He filled the stove with the wood stacked to one side and kindled the fire.
“Um. You don’t expect me to cook on that, do you?”
He shook his head. “I can manage. I’ll just be heating things.”
Weariness beat at her like wings. “Can I fold down the futon?”
“Be my guest.” His voice came laced faintly with irony.
“Like I have a choice,” she muttered.
“That is unfortunately true. I’m not going to offer to sleep on the floor, Mia. It gets chilly at night.”
“I don’t want you to.”
He rounded the other side and helped her set up the bed. A tattered quilt came out of a chest beneath the window, and he found sheets that were faded to a soft buttery yellow from many washings. Pillows came out of the chest likewise, and she touched the embroidery with tentative fingertips.
She didn’t understand him. He had roots. He had permanence. If he’d wanted, once he’d escaped from the facility, he could have gone home to a family that loved him. Instead he’d tried to kill himself, failed, and then devoted his life to vengeance.
But maybe that time had changed him, made it impossible for him to settle into a normal life. Mia remembered hearing that about war veterans. Or perhaps he was afraid returning would endanger his family. Based on what she knew of him, that made sense.
While she’d been woolgathering, he had made up the bed completely. Bone weary and aching, Mia pulled off her clothes and crawled onto the mattress in her underpants. He met her halfway, his skin a pleasurably fevered shock against her own.
“God, you feel good.” His hands roved her back, not a sexual touch, but more as if he were memorizing the feel of her.
“I’ll fall asleep,” she reminded him.
His chuckle stirred her hair. “I don’t want that. I just want… this.”
Mia nestled against him, listening to his heart. “Tell me about them.”
“Who?”
“Your family. The ones you never see.”
While chasing vengeance for a little girl who never sees you. The futility of it plucked at her heartstrings. He was the most broken man she’d ever met, like a diamond improperly cut, so only when you held it to the light a certain way could you see the brilliance within.
His breath gusted. A sigh.
“I have two sisters, both younger. My parents immigrated from Copenhagen when I was very small. They didn’t realize the difference in medical care, so they thought nothing of taking me to a free clinic for my vaccinations.”
“How did you find out?”
“In my late teens, I wondered why I was different-and so I dug around on fringe websites and alt.net user groups. There, I met someone named Mockingbird engaged in a similar search for answers.” His hands threaded in her hair as if he needed touch to ground him. “We struck paydirt in a remote database. At the time, he was the hacker, not me, but he shared what he found: names, dates, test results, control groups. My name was on that list. To Micor-and their parent company, the Foundation-I was just an experiment. And so were thousands of other children. Over the years, we’ve kept in touch. He… aids me in my work, offers information, mostly. We’ve never met in person.”