I glared at him. “You can’t make me stay here.”
“You don’t want to talk to me?”
“No! I don’t even want to see your face right now.”
He smiled—actually freaking smiled. “You’re being a bit dramatic, don’t you think? No one hurt you.”
“Uh, I passed out! What do you call that?”
“I’ve never seen that happen before, but I guess going as long as Parker did made you a little lightheaded. I had to carry you to the bed.”
I stopped trying to wiggle out of his grasp. Man, I’d missed him carrying me? “You carried me?”
He nodded. “I almost dropped you. Parker left after that.”
“Gee, good to know.”
“Em, we’re not leaving this cabin until we talk about what Parker saw.”
I pushed against his stomach, getting nowhere. Giving up, I went back to the bed and sat down. “Why did Parker go that far back? There were things… I didn’t want him to see.”
“You want to talk now?”
I glared at him. “I want to punch you. Just answer my question.”
Totally unbothered by my threat, Hayden sauntered over to the bed and sat beside me. “I guess he wasn’t getting the answer we needed.” He paused, his earlier amusement faded. “Do you really think you don’t have a soul?”
I stared down at my hands—hands that killed.
“Em?” He twisted toward me, his knees brushing my leg. “Parker said you think you don’t have a soul.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Hayden. Please.”
He was silent for several heartbeats. Finally, he spoke. “There were other things that Parker said he saw.”
I pulled on the hoodie’s string and twisted it around my finger.
Hayden’s gaze dropped over me. “Why do you always wear long sleeves? Is it because of what Parker saw?”
The string tightened around my finger until I thought it would cut the circulation. “He didn’t tell you?”
“No. He only said you were scarred. At first, I thought he meant… well, something else, but then I thought about it. You always wear long sleeves, even to sleep in. I don’t think I’ve seen your arms.”
I shrugged.
He inhaled softly. “Do you trust me?” I risked a quick look at him. “Why do you ask?”
“Do you?”
“I guess so. Even though I shouldn’t after the crap you pulled, but whatever.”
Hayden reached for me. Well, not me actually. He went for the hem of my hoodie, sliding his fingers under it.
My hands clamped down on his arms as the muscles in my stomach tensed. “What are you doing?”
“You said you trust me.”
“That was before you tried to take my clothes off!” The moment the words left my mouth, a hot flush crept over me. Because, really, was that what he intended? Because… because I didn’t know what to think about that.
He gave me a bland look. “You have a shirt on underneath. I can feel it.”
“That’s not the point,” I sputtered. I actually had a tank top on underneath, not that it mattered. He wasn’t seeing it.
“Em, you said you trust me.”
My fingers curled around his sweater as my heart revved up to a ridiculously speed. “Hayden… no one—you wouldn’t want to see this.”
“I don’t think you give me enough credit.”
“It’s not that. I do give you credit, but this—this is different.” I stared down at his fingers. They were perfect, a far cry from what I looked like. “I… I died in that accident, Hayden. It wasn’t my imagination. I was dead and there was a reason for it. I must’ve been really messed up.”
“Do you think I’ll look at you differently? That it would somehow change how I see you?”
He sounded kind of offended, and I had to look up; I had to see him. Our eyes met. There wasn’t a challenge in them anymore. I don’t know what I saw in them, but I felt my fingers relax and then let go.
Needing no other invitation, Hayden gathered the hem in his hands and began tugging it up and up. He pulled the hoodie over my head, exposing almost all my secrets.
Chapter 18
I could feel his eyes traveling over my arms and across the swell of my chest. Hayden was checking me out, but not in a way I’d ever wanted a guy to look at me. I knew what he saw.
Angry lines slashed across my upper arms, and faint scars spread across my chest and disappeared under my tank top. They’d originally been red, but they’d now faded to white. Sometimes when I looked in the mirror, I thought the scars looked like someone had dropped a spiderweb over my body. The only parts of me not scarred were my legs.
A minute went by before Hayden spoke. “Does it… does it hurt?”
Opening my eyes, I stared into the dark corners of the cabin. I felt vulnerable, exposed. “No. It never hurt. Not when I… came back.”
He let out a stilted breath. “But before?”
I forced a casual shrug and glanced at him. He wasn’t staring at the scars, but at my face. “Yeah, it hurt. Can I have my sweater back now?”
“No.” Hayden dropped it on the floor. “You shouldn’t have to hide yourself.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
He frowned. “Why would it bother me?”
“Because… because it’s ugly. I look like Frankenstein.”
“You don’t look like Frankenstein,” he said, so softly I almost didn’t hear him.
“Trust me, I know how I look.”
“Okay. What do you want me to say? That I see those scars and wonder how badly it had to hurt to end up that way? Or how wrong I think it is that you let those scars take away from everything else?”
“Take away from what?”
“Em, the scars on your arms are barely visible. You could wear shirts without sleeves. No one would notice, and you… well, no one would pay attention to the scars.”
I still wanted to jump up and grab my sweater, but I forced myself to stay put.
“How does it feel?”
“What?” I stared straight ahead, focusing on the darkness.
“To die.”
Dying wasn’t easy to put into words. “Nothing—it feels like nothing. One minute, there was pain, and then there was nothing. Just empty blackness and you’re kind of aware of everything, but not. You kinda feel it here.” I placed a hand over my stomach. “When you die you feel it empty and leave you.”
“Feel what?”
I snuck a quick peek at him. He was watching me intently, his face soft. Before I lost my nerve or thought better of it, I reached out and placed my hand on his lower stomach. Even though he wore a sweater, I could feel the heat his skin was throwing off.
“Your soul,” I said quietly. I knew I had told him I didn’t want to talk about it, but here I was with a mad case of verbal diarrhea again. “You feel it burn itself out. Like a candle.”
Hayden inhaled roughly. “You really think you don’t have a soul?”
I pulled back and shrugged again.
“All because of your touch?” Hayden shifted and leaned on one arm. His breath danced over my
