D E L P H I N I U M

It had been too long. Hours had passed since Jake had left and he hadn't come back since.

Every slam of the secret entrance made my head snap up, wondering if I'd see him in the threshold of the side room Jaxon and I were still situated in. My wrists hurt from the coarse rope, but I hadn't fought against it. There was no use. So Jaxon and I sat on the floor, shoulder to shoulder.

"Why didn't he want me there?" I finally voiced aloud when the thoughts were too much for my mind. "I could have had eyes on Hundsen from afar. I could have helped protect him from...whatever's going on."

A voice at the doorway cut off whatever Jaxon was about to respond with. "I know why he left your ass here while he went off to fight." I looked up to see Benton leaning with one shoulder in the doorway, a slight twist to his lips. "Don't you?"

"What are you doing here?" Jaxon snapped, looking ready for a fight with Benny, as always. "Shouldn't you be off somewhere, being smug and reading everyone's thoughts like the asshole you are?"

"I'm here to speak with my dear friend Delphinium. As for the thought-reading, I'll settle for yours for now," the assassin responded just as nastily. "Thoughts about your anger with Evans, and how your slip-up cost the both of you your freedom—"

"Tell me why," I interrupted, not particularly wanting to hear them get into it again when I was already on-edge. "Why did he go alone?"

Benton fixed liquid-dark eyes on me. "He had to do this himself—to show the Club that he alone is their best shot." There was a pause. "Evans suspected it was part of Hundsen's plan to lure you there as backup for him and end up killing you. You usually accompany him on his jobs anyway, especially where Hundsen is concerned. It's not surprising that he'd want revenge. And Evans had other plans."

I sighed, sliding my back down the pole to sit on the ground. Eyes on the ceiling, I said, "Of course he didn't mention that."

The assassin gave a low chuckle at that, like he knew something I didn't. "He doesn't mention a lot of things. You have no idea what he's hiding."

"Like what?" I turned to look at Jaxon, who sat next to me, eyes straight forward. I could hear the bitterness in his tone, but I wasn't sure if it was for Benny or Jake.

"Like his real name, not the one his father gave him. Or the extent of Hundsen's revenge on him for killing his father and taking the Club for his own."

"I know his real name," Jaxon said, something in his tone a bit hollow. "In prison, they used his given name, Emerson. But he made it clear that I wasn't to call him by that name." I raised my eyebrows, not having known that. It would never seem like his real name to me.

"And we know why he wants revenge on Hundsen: for turning his men against him and forcing him out of the Club—stealing all his power and getting him thrown into prison. And he suspected that Hundsen was helping his father scheme to kill him," I finished, finding it odd that Benny thought we didn't know it. Unless there was more, as I'd always suspected...

"You're right in assuming there's more," Benny told me. "Why do you think he hit Hundsen so devastatingly with his wife's death? Because Hundsen took one of his family members."

His mother... Had Hundsen killed her? "No..."

Benny cut me off, eyes boring into my face. "After Nathan Evans adopted Jake and hardly let his birth mother see him, they struggled for years. As a weapons supplier, Hundsen had near-unlimited access to guns. So when Angeline fell into a depressive spiral, Hundsen took it upon himself to go to her and give her a gun. She ended herself that night."

I blinked once, twice. As someone who'd lost family at the end of a gun, I felt that same deep horror. My heart ached with the sense of loss, even if I hadn't known about her before now. Jake had never even given me reason to believe he had a mother. It made me wonder if he'd been the one to find her after she'd died. And if he'd even cared for her.

Still slightly shocked, I glanced over at Jaxon. He already looked regretful for asking and I felt the same.

This didn't change anything. I would never coddle Jake because of it; he would hate that anyway. And he was far from a pitiful boy broken by his mother's death—not that it hadn't been a tragedy. But he reacted differently than I had when my family was murdered. I knew him well enough to assume he told himself that the sadness and loss any other person would feel at the death of a parent was weak and wrong, so he simply hadn't let himself feel it.

I had a feeling he did that with any emotion other than the cold rage in his heart. He acted like he didn't care so much that he probably wasn't acting anymore.

"Why'd you tell us that?" I asked softly. Jake would never admit it, but still...

"Sometimes people choose to not cope with loss. And it turns them into something worse." I saw the look in his eyes—the same empty look I sometimes caught myself wearing in the mirror—and knew his words could also apply to himself. "I've learned that you can understand a lot about someone by what they don't say."

Jaxon scoffed, not convinced. "Yeah, right. You were just looking for entertainment when you couldn't find it by tormenting Gigi out there." He jerked his chin to the open area around the corner where most of our teammates communed—although Gigi and I had steered clear from each other.

For once, Benny didn't take the bait. "You all will never understand what it's like to live with the weight of everyone else's secrets." I'd come to realize that although he was normally smug and all-knowing, he did carry the same weight I did from serving the same cruel master.

I looked at him in a way that I hoped could convey that I understood, that told him I still believed the boy who'd been my light in a world of darkness lived inside him. "Small steps, Benny. To becoming normal again." We'd never be normal. But I knew he understood.

We shared a look then, and I knew that although I'd never be completely alright, although I'd never fully recover from what had been done to me, maybe we could help each other undo the damage our master had done to us.

Then the door slammed and I heard Finn murmur something in a low voice. All three of us snapped our heads toward the doorway.

It was him. My heart was pounding again as I shot to my feet. "Untie me." I didn't have the concentration to untie the knot myself at the moment. Not when Jake was back and most likely injured.

Benny whipped out his switchblade and Jaxon gave him a dirty look. The ropes were quickly sawed through and I was across the room before they even hit the ground. My teammates communed in the open area were looking at each other with shock on their faces, like they were surprised at whatever they just saw. Finn looked up at me with wide eyes and shook his head a fraction. I didn't stay to exchange glances or speak with the others; avoiding Gigi's presence in the room, I went off to the infirmary.

It wasn't an infirmary like the one at the compound. But after Riley got badly wounded, we'd stocked up on medical supplies for her and for the future. And the fact that he'd even gone there worried me; it proved that he was indeed injured and needed medical attention.

A thousand scenarios ran through my mind, each more terrible than the last. What if Hundsen had finally evened the score and cut his eye out? What if he did to Jake what he'd done to Jaxon and cleaved his arm from his body?

At first I shook my head as if shaking the thoughts away. That was stupid—Jake wouldn't come here if his arm had gotten cut off. But the longer I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn't actually sure how true that was. He wouldn't go to a hospital. Not when all our enemies were looking everywhere for us. And I knew he didn't trust other people to heal him.

Taking a deep breath, I reached the doorway of the infirmary and froze. He was covered in blood. Under the bright lights, I could easily see the darker patches that stained his black shirt. The hands readying the needle and thread to sew his wounds were cracked and shiny red.

He leaned against the counter, head bowed as he readied to heal himself, dark hair hanging over his downturned eyes. But I knew he'd sensed my presence the second I'd arrived.

I took one step into the room. "You shouldn't have left the way you did. Especially not when this is the result. I mean, you look..." I trailed off, taking in the damage done to him. "What if you didn't get out? What if he killed you? Do you have any idea how that would make me feel?"

"I knew what I was doing. I wouldn't let him kill me." His lips were cracked in his own dried blood.

"But that's the point: you knew. You keep things hidden. When you do something like that...just try to not be so secretive. Not when your life hangs in the balance."

Perhaps it was because he was too worn out to argue, but he eventually said, "Fine."

I let out a breath I'd been holding. "So the Club is yours?"

"Not quite. But my work is done. I need to wait for Hundsen to drive them away."

I bit my lip. Should I tell him that Benton had told us his secrets? He wouldn't appreciate it, but I figured I'd want to know if it was me. And I felt awful for prying.

"Benton came into the room earlier. We all thought you might be dead. He told us...things about you." I wasn't sure how to break it, especially since I had no inkling of how he truly felt about the situation.

Stopping with the needle and thread, he raised his head a fraction. Cold eyes now stared at me. Swallowing, I continued. "About your real name. And what Hundsen did to your mother." I paused to let it sink in. "I'm so sorry, we shouldn't have—"

Resuming lacing the needle, he wasn't looking at me anymore. "It hasn't been a problem for me for years. It never was." I wasn't sure if he was telling the truth or not—after all, he hadn't cared when he'd murdered his father. Though, of course, this was a different situation.

I looked down at his body bleeding through his shirt. "I put off the loss of my parents too. It only made it hurt worse. And I know we're not the same people, but our situation is similar. We were both used," I said sadly, "For our power. Both turned into things we shouldn't have been."

"No," he snapped, suddenly angry. "I'm exactly what I should be. I'm exactly what I made myself. We're not the same. You were used by people you were too good for. You came into the darkness later and walked away the second you could. I might have been born into the darkness, but I chose it. Don't tell me we're the same." I said nothing, slowly understanding him fully now that I knew the extent of what had been done to him.

People were a product of their pasts. All of my friends were. Jake too. I was still trying to come to terms with it, but although people were products of their pasts, they weren't defined by it. Jake was far from a tragic person with a sad backstory. He'd chosen this life even after all the bad things that happened to him. He couldn't be redeemed on just the basis of having a loss in his life. None of us could.

Everyone said he was cruel, ruthless and violent. And maybe he was. But as I looked up into his face, I didn't see a villain or a monster. I saw a boy that had been raised in the darkness, and when it was all he knew, he learned to love it.

"Do you want me to stay?" My voice was soft now. I'd never seen him so beaten before.

"I don't care." I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out if he was lying.

I took a step closer, gauging his reaction. "I thought you were going to give your life to destroy Hundsen."

"I have more to live for than a single fight with him." He probably meant the Club, but still, my heart quickened with the possibilities...

Gently taking the needle and thread from his battered hands, I glanced up at his face once more. In his eyes was a warning—and a question. My gaze dropped to the buttoned collar of his dress shirt. I'd been surprised when he'd worn a sophisticated button-down shirt for a fight with his old gang. Perhaps he wanted to look like the true leader of the Club. Or maybe he was trying to prove that he wasn't as rough and unhinged as Hundsen painted him to be.

Either way, I began unbuttoning his shirt, not looking at him. Button by button, as his shirt fell open, his spine stiffened and his entire body was tense. Just like he had as I'd kissed him in that bunker. Trying not to think of that day, I bit my lip so hard it hurt.

At last, his shirt fell open, heavy with his own blood. With no words on my tongue, I pulled it off his body, careful when the sleeves hit his ruined hands. He hardly moved at all.

After tossing the bloody fabric on the counter behind him, I let myself survey his body for damage done. A few smaller swipes had been taken across his chest, but the blood had mostly dried. Four deep cuts and stabs marred the smooth skin of his stomach. Almost his whole upper body was streaked with red, some still shining in the lights overhead.

Still not raising my head to make eye contact, I leaned over and grabbed the needle. I tried to clear my mind of all thoughts before I gingerly touched him. It was necessary in order to be in the best position to sew his wound closed, but still... I'd never touched him like this before and he knew it.

His breath hitched. At my light touch, a tremor went through his body. And yet he kept himself still. I knew he was trying.

Sometimes I forgot I used to have a normal life. But I did. Jake did not. Violence was all he knew. I remembered how he had a lifetime of fighting. I remembered how he clawed himself to the top of his gang through blood and treachery. I remembered how his father beat him to force him into a mold he never should have fit in. And then I wondered if he'd ever been touched like this: soft, gentle. Without the intent to injure.

I knew how he hated it. But I could also feel how fast his heart pounded.

Once I began to sew the first laceration closed, it was easier. I could focus on weaving the needle through his jagged flesh, not the steady rise and fall of his chest, not the lean, corded muscle layered across his exposed body...

The first wound was sewn shut. I worked in silence on the next two. Then, when I was halfway done with the last, I found the self-control to ask, "Who did this to you?"

"Hundsen's men." His voice was hoarse from the pain. Or something else entirely.

"I didn't mean your injuries. Well, not these, anyway." I hesitated. "I meant...who did this to you." I gestured to him, not entirely sure of what I was referencing. "You're clearly uneasy."

He took so long to answer I thought he wouldn't at all. "I don't know what you mean."

"You're cold and guarded and ruthless. I think you did most of this to yourself, but not completely. I don't think you ruined yourself so emotionally and mentally on your own. Someone had to teach you to be this way." Having finished sewing the last wound shut, I finally looked into his eyes. "You act as if you have no feelings. You treat people like they mean nothing to you, even if that isn't the case. You flat-out refuse to accept any care or compassion from the people around you. Why is that?"

The room was freezing and growing chillier with every passing second.

I grabbed a wet cloth and began to gently clean the blood from his cold skin. He said nothing to me.

So I continued, eyes on his bloody chest. "I think I know why. You had every ounce of mercy beaten from you. And having to fight your whole life did something to you, didn't it? It made you shut down your human side so completely that once you feel even a drop of emotion, you get scared. Panicked. You shut down."

I paused, looking at him again to see his reaction. There was pure horror on those cruel features, despite the fact that he tried to hide it. He looked down at me with the skittish eyes of a wild animal—ready to flee or lash out at any moment. I hoped he'd stay.

"You're not fearful of really anything, I know that. And you have control over anyone and everything around you. But not...this. This feeling. Because of it...you're terrified, aren't you?"

"No. Stop," he said, his voice a croak, like he could barely get it out. "Stop talking." He wanted to go, I knew it. And he would have, but he would have to get closer to me to do so. Therefore he stayed, back pressed against the counter, dark lashes lowered.

I needed him to know that I understood, that it didn't matter—I would accept him this way. Everyone hated him or feared him or left him. But I never would.

"You're terrified that you're weak," I said slowly, wiping away the blood from the tight muscles of his stomach. "You're terrified that you could be something less than a monster. That someone could peer inside you, past the layers of darkness and distance you put up, and see that you're not always who you've made everyone believe you are." I chewed my lip. "You're terrified because you don't want to feel anything."

Now that they were clean of blood, I could see his chest and stomach was littered with small white scars nicked across his skin. Some were longer and jagged, like they'd been caused by a rusty, serrated blade. I looked down at the planes of his ridged abdomen, realizing that his body was a graveyard of all the times he'd had to fight for his life. Perhaps that was why he allowed no one to heal him—because his healed wounds could attest to the fact that he'd survived through it.

My mouth went dry at the sight of him so vulnerable before me like this.

I felt like I shouldn't look at his face. Or his body. To keep my self-control, I kept my eyes averted down.

"You're at a crossroads," I told him, saying it baldly. "You either become consumed by your fear or you live despite it." I knew that better than anyone—although I often found myself falling short of my own advice.

"I feel it too." I would offer this piece of myself to him. "I'm paranoid of every move anyone makes. I'm terrified almost all the time. But I'm willing to face this fear. For you. Would you do the same for me?"

He didn't answer. That was alright; I understood he hadn't accepted this as I had. But he also had kept me from the danger with the fight earlier...

Gently, I took one of his hands in mine and flipped it over so I could see the damage done to his knuckles. They still bled, having been completely cracked open. And his hands shook, from having me split him wide open and look into his deepest fears.

There was a quiet moment as I began to wrap his hand with bandages, the red starting to bloom through the gauze. I wound it around and around, trying to forget how close we were standing—so close that I could feel the cold radiating off his body. His head was lowered. If I looked up, I could have touched his mouth to mine.

One hand was finished so I let it go and grabbed his other to be bandaged. I wouldn't touch him unless it was to bandage him; I wanted him to touch me instead, I wanted him to admit he wanted me.

I felt the tension in his body, like he desperately wanted to pull away but was stopping himself. He was trying, I knew it.

Squeezing his hand tighter for a moment, I said, "Though I hated it, I understand why you kept me here. And I'm relieved that you came back, that you're alive." It was an effort to drop his hand and step back.

Now that I'd stepped away, he had the means to leave. I knew he was feeling vulnerable and exposed in a way that he'd never quite felt before—in the way that made him panic. I saw it in the way he acted as though I hadn't said those things and how he wouldn't look at me. Out of shame.

The air was heavy with what I'd said. I'm willing to face this fear. For you. Would you do the same for me? I knew he was trying to push the question from his memory.

Grabbing the shirt I'd pulled from his body, he pushed past me out of the room.