Chapter 9
A Strong Survivor
Kian
Inside her domain once more, the urge to call out and announce his presence was so great he nearly did it. He wanted to start out by calling her name though and he didn’t know what that was, so he just coughed loudly, as though slamming the front door wasn’t enough to announce that he was back.
The condo was small and when he stepped back into the living room, he found her right away. She’d moved away from her spot by the wall, but she was still curled up on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, her eyes staring forward, haunted, vacant.
Oh hell no. He’d seen that look before and he wasn’t going to let her go there. Not this woman. She was strong. She was a survivor.
Kian bent next to her. He reached out slowly, but didn’t touch her. He wanted to give her time to get used to his hand being there, like she was a scared dog that would either bolt or lash out at his touch.
“Hey. It’s alright now. I got rid of that trash. He’s not going to bother you anymore. Believe me, I scared the life out of him.”
His soft words brought her back. She blinked slowly and her eyes changed. She seemed to register that he was there and she actually smiled softly, though her lips trembled. Her huge blue eyes filled up with tears. They spilled over and streamed down her cheeks in profuse trails. He let her cry, let her get it all out. She didn’t sob or make a sound. Her tears were totally silent, though they came down like a waterfall.
“I think you should probably get some ice on that cheek. It’s swelling up pretty bad.” The sight of that bruise infuriated him. It made him want to make good on his word to get on his bike, track that shitpile down and beat him all over again.
“I don’t have any.” Her voice was soft, feminine, as angelic as he remembered.
“I have a few ice packs and some ice cubes at my place. Want me to get them?” He was surprised when she slowly shook her head.
“I have to feed my cat,” she whispered, rather irrationally, he thought. “She’s probably hiding. Terrified. She’s probably so hungry…”
He knew from experience that sometimes it was easier just to give in. If this was important to her, it would help if it was done. “I’ll do it. Tell me where it is.”
“There’s tuna in the pantry. Open it. Put a quarter onto a plate. Her medicine bottle is in the cupboard over the fridge. There’s a blue measuring vial. Fill it to the two mark and mix it into the food. She’ll come out soon. I hope. She’s probably so scared…” she trailed off, voice turning into a whisper.
“It’s alright,” Kian said gruffly. He’d had more than his fair share of experience dealing with trauma victims. Over the years he’d seen it all. Rape cases. Domestic abuse. Homicides. People trusted him. They really had no reason to, but for some reason, they always talked to him when they couldn’t talk to anyone else. “I’ll do it.”
He went off towards the kitchen. He flicked on the light, noting that it was just like his own. He found everything easily. What do you know, the click of the can opener produced an ancient blue eyed beast. The Siamese cat blinked up at him, staring him down hard, assessing him.
“I’m a friend,” he said gently. “See, a peace offering.” He produced the dish with the good and medicine mixed in.
The cat strode forward confidently and actually rubbed his leg. It meowed softly, a horrible noise that didn’t sound like a meow at all. He bent, set the food down and gently caressed the cat’s back. It was so ancient he could feel the backbone. It sagged a little at the end and the animal’s hip bones were visible. The cat was long and lanky and he was willing to bet it had looked like that almost its entire life. Age only heightened the signs. The coat was no longer shiny either. It was almost shaggy, oily down the back.
He made sure the cat was eating before he went back to the living room. The woman, the nameless woman, pushed herself to standing. She stared at him with those eyes of hers, eyes that were old before her time.
“Thank you,” she whispered and he wasn’t sure if she was thanking him for getting rid of the garbage or for feeding her cat. Probably both.
He raised a hand to his hair and brushed the long strands away from his face. “No problem.” He actually felt the sting of unfamiliar heat on his cheeks. He felt… undone the way she was looking at him. It was strange and cutting, sharp and intense. She blinked then, freeing him from her spell and let out a relieved breath.
The floor was spattered with blood. It was a little unnerving to say the least. “You got a mop? I can clean that up.”
“I’ll do it.”
He couldn’t say what made him do it. He hadn’t touched a person, at least not in that way, with any kind of tenderness, in four years. He was unable to stop himself from reaching out and gently caressing her forehead. He felt the welt forming there and moved his hand lower, skimming over the bruise.
His heart hammered violently. His entire body came alive and so painfully aware. He skimmed that delicate skin, so very gently, lightly, almost not touching her at all. She was fire. A damn pillar of fire standing there, burning him, consuming him. His hand didn’t feel like his hand at all, his arm burned, his body sizzled with electricity. He forced himself to be gentle when he pulled his hand away.
Her beautiful blue eyes never left his face. She didn’t tremble or jerk away when he touched her. The most incredible emotion shimmered in those blue depths. Trust. She trusted him. She had no reason to. He looked like a badass. She’d seen him do physical damage to another person. She knew what he was capable of, and yet, she sensed he wouldn’t hurt her.
That trust, her innocent, naïve, misplaced trust, did something to his heart. He was damn hard inside. Like a rock. Other than the pain in his head that he never could block out, the nightmares and unguarded moments, the memories that assailed him, he felt nothing at all. No joy, no fear, nothing.
When she looked at him like that, damn it, when he’d touched her, he felt… he felt- alive. Like his heart was truly beating again. He felt his skin and his bones and his blood. He felt that he was a flesh and blood man and not just a shell.
“This is going to be bad,” he choked out as his insides twisted into a hard knot. “I don’t want it to swell up so badly that you can’t see out of that eye. Please, come to my house and let me put ice on it. You can stay there while I come back and clean up your living room floor.”
“I can’t do that,” she whispered. “You’ve done enough. I’ll go to the store and get some ice.”
“Not a chance,” he protested, amazed he could even find words or force a coherent thought at the moment, when his body was doing wild things, things he hadn’t felt in years. It was sheer instinct and years of professional training, he knew, that pulled out the words, that forced his voice. “Just come over. It will be alright. I promise.”
She hedged. Her hand flew to the bruise on her cheek one delicate, manicured finger tracing the outline of the purple swell. She winced. “I… I don’t even know your name.”
He nodded slowly. “Yah. I know. I think now, of all times, we can be on a first name basis. I’m Kian.” Absurdly, he stuck out his hand. She stared at it for a moment before she reached out and gently placed her palm in his. Fire shot up his arm, the flames licking and searing his skin. He managed not to wince or rip his hand away. She dropped her palm back to her side naturally a second later.
“Katelyn.”
“Katelyn,” he repeated reverently, because he couldn’t stop himself. He loved the sound of her name. It rolled off his tongue and filled up the small living room.
“Yah,” she muttered. “Katelyn. I guess we’re even now.”
“What?” His brow raised and he frowned in confusion.
“Well, I picked you off the sidewalk last night, saving you much humiliation and probably a few angry complaints about public drunkenness to the condo board. It might have been the final straw for you, considering your bike is far too loud and obnoxious. I’m sure they’ve received a couple calls about that. So really, if you think about it, I saved you from being evicted.”
His grin started out slow and spread from there. It was amazing, how his facial muscles automatically remembered how to do it. Smile. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done so and meant it. “I suppose we are then. Although I think you’re wrong. I don’t actually believe anyone would call in a complaint about me.”
One of her slim, blonde brows arched in echo of his. “Oh? You seem pretty confident in that.”
“I am. Have you ever heard the term snitches end up in ditches?”
“Oh my god…”
He laughed, a short burst that was also genuine. Isn’t today just a damn day of firsts? “I would never do that. Obviously. I might drive a bike and be tattooed, but I’m not the kind who puts people in ditches. Anyway, I’m also not naïve. I know people don’t like me here and I know they’re scared of me. I think they’re way too scared to report me or make a complaint. They probably think I’d find out about them and come for them.”
Katelyn actually giggled. It was high pitched and girly. “Dragging my ex-husband out of here doesn’t help your cause.”
“It might. Anyone who is against scumbags and woman beaters would applaud what I did.”
“Except they just saw a guy in a suit all bloody being hauled out. They don’t know what he did. He only ever did… behind closed doors.”
His rage built all over again. He took a deep inhale and let out the air in a long rush. “Come on. I promise my condo is safe. I’ll give you some ice there.”
He waited, almost afraid, for some irrational reason, that she wouldn’t come. She finally nodded. “Alright.”
Kian led the way, out of her condo, over to his. He let her in, aware that she’d been there just the night before. What must she think of him? In less than a day she’d seen him completely dead drunk, vomiting on the landscaping, a wreck to someone who pounded the living daylights out of her ex.
He himself didn’t know what to think. About any or all of it. Worse, he didn’t know what to do with the fact that her presence took up his whole kitchen. Her delicate scent assailed him again, the force of her being assailed him. She hit every single unfeeling part, melting the ice that covered and protected him. It hurt so badly it was hard to draw a breath.
What he did best was escape. When the pain inside was too much for him to bear, he escaped. He went inside of himself. Tunneled in deep. Lost himself in whiskey and oblivion. He handed off an ice pack and mumbled something about cleaning up her floor and disappeared. He needed just a few minutes, a few minutes to sort himself out and let those soft spots, those painful feeling spots, freeze back over.