“Me either. I’d never told anyone at all until Julian. And I only told him because I had to.”
“You had to?”
“My dad was trying to make me come back home, and I’m only seventeen, so Julian was going to send me. I told him. Showed him the bruises on my arm.”
He paused for a moment. “Did you feel like you needed proof?”
“Absolutely. Not because of anything Julian did,” I added quickly. “We’d just met that day; I didn’t know anything about the guy. But I’ve never felt like people would believe me just because I said so. Especially not strangers.”
“I don’t really feel that way. I think I did when I was younger, but not now. Why would I lie about that?”
“It’s because I’m a girl. People are always suspicious of girls. Especially men.”
“Oh. Shit. You’re right. Jesus, that sucks.”
I laughed softly. “It does.”
We were both quiet for a moment. The voices downstairs had faded.
“Let’s wait, like, half an hour,” he said. “If it’s still totally quiet then, we’ll make a break for it.”
“OK.”
He shifted, adjusting the sleeping bag beneath him. “Does it not bother you?” he asked. “The sparring?”
“No. Why?” I turned to look at him, but his gaze was downcast. “Ohhhh. Is that why you avoid instead of engaging?”
“Yeah, I just . . . Part of me panics when someone tries to hit me. You can’t tell?”
“I couldn’t tell at all.”
“That’s good, I guess. I try to hide it. I spent a lot of time honing my flight response when I sensed danger, so I’m really fast. I’m basically having a mild panic attack every time we do sparring. It takes a lot of effort not to just run away.”
I thought of how my heart would pound every time Dad would come home. Even if I knew he was in a good mood. Even if he was returning after a few weeks gone and I knew I’d have at least a few days before we slipped back into our normal routine. Every cell in my body went on high alert, regardless of how much I tried to reason with it.
“With scrabs too?” I asked.
“No, definitely not with scrabs. It’s something about a fist coming at my face. I know I should work on it, but I’m paired with Gage now.”
I winced. “That can’t be helping.”
“It’s really not. I think Julian did it on purpose to torment me.”
He was probably right. But surely Julian didn’t know that Edan was scared of sparring. I didn’t think he’d pair him with Gage if he knew that.
“What if we switch?” I asked. “I’ve been with Dorsey lately, and he’ll have no problem sparring with Gage. We could work on it?”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
“Thanks,” he said, looking up at me with a smile. I returned it.
At four thirty a.m., Edan asked for my bobby pin.
He crept to the door and crouched in front of the knob, working almost silently.
Then he stood and turned to me with an expectant expression. It took me a moment to realize that the door was already cracked.
I wondered if he could see the surprise on my face in the dark. I’d believed he’d picked a lock before, but I thought maybe he’d popped open a jewelry box once. My hopes hadn’t been high. They weren’t even in the medium range.
A smile twitched at his lips, like he knew exactly why I was so taken aback. He tilted his head toward the door, indicating for me to follow him.
We stepped out of the room. The floors creaked quietly beneath our feet—there was no way to avoid it—but hopefully not loud enough to alert anyone of our presence.
Edan went left at the staircase. We slowly descended the steps. It was dark, the rooms on the first floor just shapes in the darkness. The front door loomed in front of us, and I scanned the wall next to it for an alarm system. I didn’t see one. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
We took the last step and crept to the door. Edan carefully unlocked the deadbolt. He grasped the knob and turned.
The door opened to silence. No alarm system. My shoulders sagged with relief.
We stepped onto the porch. We were on a farm. There were stables right across from us, and to my left was a large barn.
Edan sucked in a breath suddenly and grabbed my hand. I stole a glance over my shoulder as he pulled me off the porch. The property was gated, and an armed guard stood beneath a light in front of the gate.
We darted around the house. Edan dropped my hand as we pressed our backs to the wall.
“Did he see us?” I whispered.
“I don’t think so.”
I leaned forward, trying to see the back of the property. Was it gated all the way around? Were there more guards? All I could make out was the outline of another barn, and a smaller building in the distance.
Voices made my head snap back around. They were two male voices, coming from the front of the house. They were getting closer.
I took a quick glance left and right, and then darted for the barn in front of us. The door was cracked, so I pushed it open just enough to squeeze through. Edan followed.
“Oh my god,” Edan breathed.
Scrabs. A whole row of them stretched out in front of us, locked in individual stalls. The building had probably been meant to hold livestock, but the stalls had been modified with steel bars to become cages.
And they were silent. Why weren’t they growling? Roaring?
My eyes darted around the huge space. There were so many stalls—rows and rows of them. Several hundred scrabs could fit in here. At least.
I took a hesitant step forward and peered around the next row. Empty.
The following row was the same, two stalls in the middle completely mangled, like the scrab had torn the bars off. Red lights
