I am not led.
Exiled.
Wren was Exiled.
And everyone in the city knew what that meant.
I didn’t know how to even begin from here. I’d already guessed that Wren was dangerous. Those guys wielding automatic weapons meant business, which told me Wren was no angel.
But this…this was a death sentence. And I was guilty by association.
Wren glanced over his unwounded shoulder, and I could feel him watching me, waiting for my reaction. I didn’t give him one. I pretended my wide-eyed horror was for his wound even though the bullet had only grazed him just as he said. He lied when he claimed it wasn’t as bad as it looked. A shudder shook my body as I imagined how much pain he must be in. How he’d been able to pretend otherwise, I’d never know, but right now, he looked seconds from passing out.
When Shane finished cleaning the wound, he dropped the bloody cloth on the table, and I noticed Wren paled and turned his head in disgust.
“Don’t tell me you don’t like blood,” I blurted with equal parts hostility and incredulity.
He stared back at me but didn’t respond.
“Makes him queasy,” Shane supplied. “Last time, he threw his guts up all over my floor. Bethany bitched for a week.”
“Last time?” I squealed. “You mean he’s been shot more than once?”
“This makes three,” Shane informed with a misplaced sense of pride.
I swayed on my feet as if someone were pointing a gun at me right now. Wren had been shot three times? But he was so young. Why would anyone want to hurt him? Was it because he’d hurt them first? Sorrow, fear, anger…it all overpowered my girlish infatuation.
“You’re going to need stitches,” Shane grumbled as he set about sterilizing supplies.
Wren simply nodded, and I realized he was still watching me even as he took a swig of rum.
Despite my inner turmoil, I couldn’t stop my feet from moving or explain why I grabbed his hand, but when he held mine for dear life, I knew there was no way I was letting go. His warmth comforted me as much as mine must have soothed him.
I didn’t miss a single wince or clench of his jaw as Shane sewed his flesh back together. My stomach turned at the same time my heart pounded with worry. Wren’s pain felt like my pain. I only wished I knew why.
After Shane finished dressing the newly stitched wound, he pressed a couple of painkillers into Wren’s hand and ordered him to take them when the alcohol wore off. Wren defiantly popped them both in his mouth and swallowed. Shane chuckled and shook his head as he cleaned up. I wanted to scream at this monstrous man who’d taken part in corrupting him, but Wren’s hand squeezed mine, effectively keeping me silent.
“You and the girl can take my spare for the night.”
“We’re leaving,” Wren announced.
It was all I could do not to run for the door. The danger of icy roads and hypothermia was probably ten times safer than a night spent under Shane’s warm roof.
“Not in this storm, you’re not. That’s an order,” Shane quickly added before Wren could object.
Wren glared at Shane and freed his hand from mine as he stood. “Fine,” he said.
I wanted to scream that it was not fine. With a jerk of his head, Wren ordered me to follow him. I did, slowly, while wondering if anyone would object if I left to brave the storm alone. I never got the chance to ask.
The moment we left the kitchen, Wren, as if reading my mind, looked over his shoulder and trampled my hopes with three words.
“You’re not leaving.”
Upstairs, he led me to the guest bedroom at the top of the stairs and flipped on the light. It was stylish yet simply decorated with flowing dark green curtains, a queen bed covered with a comforter to match the curtains, white nightstands on each side, and a tall white dresser with a TV mounted on the wooden surface.
“This is…cozy.” I thought being alone in a car with him had been stressful. Spending the night, sharing the same bed, however, was…nerve-racking. My body didn’t seem to mind, and I told myself I was too tired to care. No way could I still find him irresistible after what I had just learned.
Wren didn’t respond, and I began to wonder if he considered all conversation rhetorical. He pulled the comforter and a pillow off the bed, and I watched, feeling perplexed yet a little relieved, as he began making a pallet on the floor. After freeing his gun from his waist, he placed it under his pillow.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to bed,” he answered without sparing me a single glance.
“But your shoulder won’t survive on the floor. Take the bed. I’m used to sleeping on the ground.” That wasn’t exactly true, but he didn’t need to know that. I couldn’t exactly spend the night alone on a park bench and expect to survive the night unmolested. It forced me to take risks my homeless peers didn’t have to, so I got creative. Sometimes, I’d spend the night right under my foster parents’ noses inside a neighbor’s shed. The older school buses were easy to break into, and sometimes, I crashed with Miles during the rare times his parents weren’t hovering.
Wren paused, and I would have thought he might be considering my point except he looked pissed as fuck. Lying down, he grimaced as he searched for a comfortable position.
“You’re going to be doing that all night if you don’t take the bed,” I observed.
He stood to his feet quicker than I would have expected, gripped the front of my shirt, and with little effort or care, he tossed my ass on the bed. Eventually, I stopped bouncing enough to see him watching me with his arms crossed. His eyes dared me to move from the bed.
“Now go the fuck to sleep.”
Stalking across the room, he shut off the light.
“I’m dirty, and I smell,” I admitted shamefully. The bedding looked too pristine. I shuddered to think what my dirty clothes were doing to them.
“Yeah, no fucking kidding,” I heard him mutter before he lay back down on the pallet.
Flushing from my greasy hairline to my still frozen toes, I lay perfectly still until his breathing deepened before it evened out. I scooted from the bed, careful not to make a sound, and shed my backpack before peeling the clothes from my body. I refrained from tossing them across the room like I would if I were alone. Keeping them close meant easy access. I could put them back on undetected before Wren woke up in the morning.
With my dirty clothes safely crumpled in a pile next to the bed, I slid under the cool, clean sheets and snuggled deep. It had been a week since I slept in a bed and even longer since I slept in one this comfortable. Regardless of the circumstances and the company that came with it, I planned to savor it. Who knew how long I’d be on the streets this time. I’d been caught enough times to know it was inevitable.
“Hey, kid?”
At the heart-dropping sound of Wren’s voice so perfectly lucid, I yanked the sheets to my chin, clutching them tight and swallowing my squeal.
That asshole had been pretending to sleep! Had he watched me undress? Against my will, my toes curled at the possibility. I decided to ignore them and focused on my outrage. Realizing he’d called me ‘kid’ again helped out a lot.
“Yes?” I snapped.
He hesitated and silly me, I held my breath. However, it was nothing compared to my reaction to what he said next. “I owe you one.”