Free Memory: Book Two (Scars 2) by Sinden West Page A

before tossing it to the floor and
turning the light back off. He still lay on his back, and I could tell that his
eyes were open.
    I
moved slightly closer to him, tucking my hands close into my chest in case I
had the urge to touch him again. “Aaron?”
    “Yeah?”
he said in the dark, his head didn’t turn toward me.
    “You
don’t love me…if you did, you wouldn’t be so cold with me.” He stayed silent,
and I bit my lip before continuing. “But that’s okay. What I wanted to know
though,” I swallowed, my throat suddenly too thick and my tongue too clumsy,
“is do I love you?”
    More
silence, and I felt my cheeks flush, but then his voice came through the dark,
clear and emotionless. “No, Rachel.” A weird disappointment surged through me,
and I was just about to turn my back to him and curl up alone on the cold side
of the bed when he spoke again. “You despise me. You try to tell yourself that
you don’t, you continually try to talk yourself into believing that you have
some kind of sick and twisted love for me to justify your actions, but it isn’t
true. All you have is hatred that you’re too scared to admit, because then
you’d have to act on it.”
    I
cleared my throat, unsure of what to say. “Why do I hate you?” I held my
breath.
    “Because
I’ve done bad things…I still do.”
    I
wanted to know more, but I was also scared to delve any further. “Then…why do I
live with you? Why am I here?”
    There
was a pause. “You’re lonely, and it’s easier to live with someone like me who
you hate and can readily admit is a monster, than to go back to that snake of a
mother of yours and pretend that she loves you and you love her.” He swallowed.
“That’s why you stay with me.”
    I
kept my eyes on his silhouette as I took in his words that brought up more
questions and uncomfortable truths that made my head hurt. He knew what my
mother was, and that meant that he knew what I was.
    I
shifted away from him, curling up into a little ball and hugged myself,
suddenly cold as my heart began to beat rapidly. Then I thought: fuck it. I
unwrapped my limbs and moved over to where he lay. My hand slid over his chest,
trapping him there under my arm as I rested my head next to his on the same
pillow.
    After
a moment, he asked, “What are you doing?”
    “Playing
pretend.”
    He
didn’t respond, but I felt his chest move up and down in a rhythmic beat.
    “Aaron?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Why
weren’t you scared of those guys today?”
    He
laughed, and it was a pleasant sound. “They were pussies. They were all show
without the balls to do anything.”
    “But
what if the gun had gone off accidentally? What then? You would have been
dead.”
    “Everything
in life is a risk, Rachel.”
     

Chapter Eight
     
    He
was gone when I woke up. He had silently fucked me again last night, and after
that I had stayed huddled against his skin like he was the only refuge and
warmth around. If my attempt at gaining affection was welcome or not, I had no
idea, but he didn’t cast me aside. Whatever his feelings or apathy toward me,
at least I was welcome as a bedmate.
    I pulled
on my robe before I went in search of him. It was white, like everything else,
as if white were a disease that could be caught, an affliction that ran rampant
through this house. Except for Aaron; with his dark clothes, hair and eyes, he
was like a blot; a shadow on a lung, ominous and overpowering.
    I
padded silently down the stairs, stopping at half way when voices rose up to
meet me.
    “You
need to start sharing your information, Aaron,” a man said. “They came after
you in your home. Attacking you is like attacking us .”
    “Relax,
I will deal with it.” Aaron’s voice was tight, but the other man obviously
wasn’t fazed by it.
    “You’re
one of us, Aaron. Luca thinks of you as family, you better let us in. And why
the hell are you still here anyway? You should have her somewhere safe until
the assholes who did this are