I mumbled words to myself on my way out of the cafeteria, preparing what to say to Rekkan. The person who followed me out escaped my notice.

Until a bony hand snagged my shoulder. 

I jumped and spun around to face Serigg. Her good eye fastened to the platinum keycard clutched in my hand.

"You are going to find Rekkan?"

"Yes." Defensiveness added a bite to my tone, an unsaid 'And don't you dare tell me not to.'

She glanced behind me, where innocuous chatter spilled through the doorway, and she lowered her voice. "You asked why I came to the Refuge, Zafaru. I came here for you. One week before she became Implanted, your mother came to me and asked me to keep you safe if anything happened to her."

My ribcage contracted, squeezing my heart. "She suspected something would happen?"

She hesitated, tongue flitting over her sagging lower lip. "If you promise to stay away from Rekkan, I'll tell you everything I know."

Hot frustration seared through me. I wanted to know what she meant when she told me I was in danger at the Refuge, but not at this cost. This whole place seemed determined to paint Rekkan as a villain. To keep us apart.

"Why do you hate him so much?" I demanded.

She clucked her tongue. "I don't hate him, Zafaru. But I heard what happened at Mediation today... and I saw what happened to Marvikk. What would your mother say?"

I didn't know if my mother would have liked Rekkan, but I knew what she would do in my shoes. She would prioritize the future over the present. The discovery of knowledge over repairing a relationship. The world over me.

I admired many things about my mother... but I didn't want to be like her.

"I'm not staying away from Rekkan," I said. "If that's all you have to say, I'll be on my way."

She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Zafaru, please. I'm on your side."

I pushed her hand off of me. "If you're against Rekkan, you're not on my side. You're in my way."

Side-stepping her, I started toward the Northerner rooms.

My footsteps echoed down the empty entry corridor, a perfect replica of the Southie side. The same walls, the same lighting, the same double-door leading to the dormitory. I swiped the platinum keycard over the blinking red light, passed through the door, and hunted for the room number assigned to Rekkan.

In front of Room 28, I paused. Sucking in a breath, I rapped on the door.

Silence.

I fingered the keycard, debating whether to enter. I needed to at least see Rekkan's clothing. To see Fluffy. But the fear of finding the room empty immobilized me.

Then heavy footsteps approached. When the door cracked open two inches and Rekkan's face appeared, a sigh of relief spilled from me.

His eyes widened, and his brow pinched. "Zaf?" He scanned me from head to toe and glanced both ways down the corridor. "What are you doing here?"

I wrapped my fingers in the hem of my shirt, prepared words sticking in my throat. "Um. I just... can we talk?"

His brow furrowed further, but he pushed the door open and gestured for me to enter.

And my prepared words fled.

Rekkan was shirtless. Damp hair clung to his forehead and neck, a few shades darker than when it was dry, and the defined muscles of his chest and abdomen glowed with that post-shower freshness. Gray joggers outlined his muscular thigh and silhouetted his bionic leg. The scent of clean soap and spicy musk wrapped me.

"Zaf?" His voice was soft — worried. He tilted his head and laced one hand into his hair. I watched his shoulder muscles shift, his bicep contract.

I cleared my throat. "You're, uh... can you... shirt."

"Oh."

He pivoted to snatch a neatly-folded shirt from his pillow and tugged it on with his back to me. As if facing away made it any better. His back muscles stretched in perfect alignment, and the joggers hugged his ass in a way that should have been criminal. And unfortunately, the fitted black V-neck did little to help.

He turned back toward me. "Better?"

"Not really, no. Could you stop looking so sexy for two seconds so I can think straight?"

A tiny, lopsided smile, and a head tilt. "You could just stop ogling me."

"You don't know how hard that is."

He raised an eyebrow. "Actually, I do. I have to stop myself from ogling you all the time."

Well, fuck. I was definitely thinking with the wrong part of my body now. Could we skip the talking-it-out part and jump straight to the make-up sex?

I took one step toward him.

His eyes darkened with interest, but his feet rooted in place. "Zaf, why are you here?"

I bit my lower lip and forced myself to focus on Fluffy's jar on the bedside table. "I needed to see you. I was afraid that... I thought you left."

For a few silent seconds, I watched Fluffy climb the stem of a fresh leaf Rekkan must have taken from the greenhouse.

Then, a quiet admission: "I thought about it."

My eyes flitted back to him. "If you want to go back to the fortress, we can go."

He shook his head. "Not 'we,' Zaf. There's no 'we.'"

My throat dried. "What do you mean? I thought you wanted..." You wanted to marry me. "To go on picnics together."

"Picnics are always better in fantasies."

My stomach dropped, leaving an empty ache in its place. I slid one heel back, and unshed tears clogged my voice. "So you don't want to be with me anymore?"

He reached a hand toward me but did not move close enough to actually touch me. "Hey, hey. Zaf, that's not... look, you fit in here. You're good with people; you like people."

"I like you the most."

"You shouldn't."

"Why?"

Rekkan blew out an exhale and dropped onto the bed behind him. "Because I'm not..." He picked up Fluffy's jar and watched her, though his eyes were unfocused. "Did you know I put another boy in the hospital when I was only ten years old?"

"Marvikk?"

The jar stilled in his hands. "So Serigg already warned you about me."

"What did Marvikk do to you?"

He breathed a laugh. "Nothing."

"I don't believe that. I don't believe you would hurt him for no reason."

"Mekkar and Serigg didn't want to believe it, either. They searched me for bruises, but I didn't have any."

"Not all bruises are visible."

His eyebrows ticked together, a moment of confusion, of uncertainty.

Eyes not leaving Rekkan, I approached the bed and sank down beside him. With quiet insistence, I said, "What did Marvikk do? Please tell me."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. When his hand dropped away, he sighed. "When I lived with Mekkar and Serigg, I brought home a pet cockroach. Stored it way back under my bed so Mekkar wouldn't know, since he didn't allow bugs in the house. But I shared my secret with Marvikk.

"The next week, I found him plucking the roach's legs off. One-by-one, real slow. I told him to stop, and he just grinned at me." Rekkan traced a finger over the jar. "Marvikk told me cockroaches are nasty critters no one wants... like me. And then he smashed it."

For a moment, I sat frozen, breath trapped in my chest. When I released the breath, I laid a hand on his thigh. "Did you ever tell Mekkar and Serigg what he did?"

"No." A bitter smile twisted his lips. "Didn't want them to know I'd been keeping a cockroach in my room. At the time, I figured admitting to an extra wrongdoing would only make things worse."

"You should have told them."

"Yeah, probably. But I didn't. And then Mekkar sent me away to his eldest brother, a psychologist. Uncle Psych always said the right things, and when I did anything wrong, he just fondled his chin, like I was so interesting. A regular fucking Ivogg." He darted a glance my way. "Sorry, I know that you, uh... anyway, it wasn't really about what the new uncle did. It was more that I had actually believed Mekkar might... but then he..."

He set Fluffy's jar back on the table and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Point is, I learned how to control my emotions after that. How to live out of habit. I became someone no one would want, and then not being wanted couldn't hurt me anymore."

I took a moment to process, then spoke with quiet certainty. "But I want you."

"For now."

The words carried no venom, yet they spread poison through my veins. "What do you mean, for now?"

Another sigh. "Who is training you, Zafaru? And what happened to your neck?"

I averted my gaze and rubbed my neck. "Well, that's... I'm not supposed to..."

"You won't tell me because you are afraid of what I might do. And the worst part is, I can't blame you. I don't know what I would do, either."

"But I know you would never hurt me."

His Adam's apple bobbed, and his voice dropped quiet — hoarse. "I almost hurt you today."

"No. That same scenario could play out a thousand times, and you would never hurt me." My hand drifted a few inches to hook my pinky over his. "I'm not afraid of you, Rekkan."

He turned to face me, and his eyes darted between mine. I became aware of the narrow space between us... of his breath brushing my face.

Before I could stop myself, I closed the space between us. When my lips pressed against his, he stiffened, his own lips smooth and hard. Unresponsive.

With an exhale of mingled shame and disappointment, I pulled away. "Sorry, I didn't —"

He snaked both hands around my neck and yanked me back toward him. His mouth met mine with a greed and desperation I was not used to. Bruising my lips and igniting my core. His tongue slipped inside, probing, while his hand raked down my back.

I returned the kiss with equal enthusiasm, hands exploring his body the way I devoured the first meal he had given me. But rather than satiating me, the hard muscle flexing under my hands only fueled my appetite. My body strummed with need.

When I reached for the drawstring of his joggers, Rekkan clamped a hand over my wrist with a tortured moan.

"Wait. Stop."

I straightened and blinked, struggling to focus on his face. My lips tingled with the memory of his and the desire for more. "Why?" I managed to croak.

With a slightly shaky hand, he brushed hair from my forehead. "I'm not leaving, alright? I just need more time to sort everything out in my head. Can you give me two days?"

He sounded like he actually needed confirmation. I thought if I said no, he might give in and take me here and now. The prospect was tempting, but I wanted to respect him even more than I wanted to fuck him.

Which was really saying something.

"Yes. Yes, of course. I'll be waiting."

I flashed a bright smile, the kind I offered long ago when he caught me stealing from him. A faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips, and his eyes softened. The tenderness in his gaze emboldened me to ask the question still festering in my mind.

"Rekkan... were you really happier when you lived alone?"

For five horrible seconds, he didn't respond. Then he squeezed my hand and drew a slow breath. "Not happier, no. It was just easier. Less painful."

The words settled over my heart like a gentle drift of snow, cold but also soft. Vulnerable. Like he had just handed me a hidden part of his soul. It wasn't what I wanted to hear, but it was what I needed to know. It wasn't perfect, but it was real.

"Is the pain worth it?" I asked, trying to keep my voice even. Trying to hide my real question.

Am I worth it?

Crow's feet etched the corners of his eyes. "I'm not ready for this conversation. Can we talk more in two days?"

I swallowed back the lump in my throat and nodded. "Alright."

He plucked up my hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of my wrist. "Thank you, Zaf."