Free Keir by Pippa Jay Page A

explained. “I have not shown my face since I was seven years old. I feel… ”
    “Naked? Vulnerable?”
    Keir nodded reluctantly, a pang of unease spearing through him at admitting to such weakness.
    Quin sighed. “I’m sorry. I wish I could make this easier for you, but you will get used to it. You don’t need to hide your face here.”
    “I know. I am simply unaccustomed to it.” Keir watched as Quin touched his sleeve again, sensing something more beneath the movement. “You are sad. Is something wrong?”
    Quin glanced up, searching his face with a sudden urgency. “How did you know that?”
    “I…felt it. Now you are frightened.”
    She stood and turned away as if recoiling from him in dread, one hand to her mouth.
    He was suddenly, terribly certain he had broken some unknown taboo. “Quin, what is the matter? What have I done?”
    “No, you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s what I’ve done to you. I…I have a confession to make.” She turned back to him with a guilty look in her eyes and her hands clasped together in supplication. She was silent for so long he began to think she could not bring herself to go on. “Did you know that you died after I brought you here?” she whispered.
    Keir shivered reflexively. “No one told me. I thought I might be dying. I have never felt so close to it before,” he murmured. “Who brought me back?”
    “I did.”
    “And that is your confession?”
    “No. It’s the way it was done. The medical team couldn’t save you and I was told to let you go, but I couldn’t.” Quin swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t. So I went after you. I joined my mind to yours and brought you back, whether you wanted to or not. I gave you no choice.”
    He stared at her in disbelief, mystified by her apparent contrition. She seemed overwhelmed by shame for her actions, as if she had committed some grave sin against him.
    “You believe I wanted to die?”
    “Didn’t you?”
    Keir frowned and closed his eyes, trying to think. It was harder than he would ever admit to go back to that place. “I remember darkness,” he murmured. “I was so tired and I wanted to sleep. I did not want the pain any more. I wanted it to stop.”
    Quin walked away suddenly, arms wrapped around herself, and he knew she was crying. Guilt poured from her like waves, and he remembered sinking into the sea, remembered her reaching out for him. Still unsteady, he rose and went to her. The sight of her tears hurt more than the dark memories of his death. He had no wish for her to endure such pain on his behalf.
    “You took my hand, even though it meant you drowning with me.” He took a deep breath then slowly, deliberately, took her face in his hands, desperate for her to understand. “Do you remember what happened then?”
    Her eyes widened, and a long moment of silence wrapped around them. “You…you held onto my hand,” she stuttered at last. “I couldn’t let go.”
    “Because I had made my choice. I wanted to be saved.” He wiped a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “I came back because I wanted to live, and if you need my forgiveness for that, you have it. You have shown me nothing but kindness. Why would I hate you for it?”
    “Because that isn’t the end of it! Our minds are joined forever, an unbreakable bond. If anything happens to me, you’ll feel it whether you want to or not. You’ll never be free of me, and one day, one of us will die. Have you any idea what that will do to the other?”
    Keir shook his head. “I have faced Death. How can it be any worse than everything I have been through already?”
    “You’ve no idea what it will be like.”
    “Then I will learn. Or is it that you want to be rid of me? Do you regret doing it?”
    “No!” Quin shook her head, seemingly horrified. “But I’ve lived through it once and I don’t know if I’d have the strength to do it again. I had no right to condemn you to that.”
    Her whole body shook as she sobbed, her mind radiating