I opened my mouth just as he held up his index finger. “I don’t… like interruptions.”
I pressed my lips together and focused on the fact that he could barely talk without panting.
I would hate to be in the same position he was in.
“I got… hit. Hard,” he continued, his words slow.
Something hit him? What in the hell was strong enough to hit him? Where had he been in the first place?
I shouldn’t have asked. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know, especially if I wanted to actually sleep tonight or any night ever again.
“My back… hurts,” he admitted so, so slowly, those cheeks flexing again.
Why was he saying it as if he thought it was my fault?
His eyes opened, and his gaze flicked toward me there on my knees by his feet, his face wiped smooth of any expression, even the grumpy one. Those pale lavender lids fell over those dark purple eyes as he lifted his chin just a little bit and said—sounding… resentful?—“I’m… weak.”
It was nothing I hadn’t already figured out, but to hear him actually admit it?
I had to leave.
I was going to die. Whatever had done that to him was going to find him here.
We were dead, or at least I was.
I needed to go.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
“Stop… panicking…，” The Defender breathed out.
Easier said than done. I tried to make myself calm down, but that wasn’t the way this kind of shit worked. You didn’t just tell your body to stop freaking out.
“Stop,” he growled.
I’d get right on that. After I got my suitcase out, threw some clothes in, and drove as fast as I could away from here. Maybe I wouldn’t even bother getting clothes and I’d go straight for my car. I’d have to live off-grid for a while, but I could drive to the nearest major town and do my lessons in my car. I had a translating job for a small publisher next month that would be enough money to hold me over for a while; I’d been trying to get into transcribing books to supplement my income, and I’d been excited to land it. I could figure it out.
I always did.
“If someone… comes… I’ll sense it… first…，” he struggled to say.
I wasn’t feeling so optimistic about that, not when he’d been passed the hell out for three days straight.
But something must have been on my face because he narrowed those incredible purple eyes at me even more.
Was he… mean-mugging me? He was, wasn’t he? Why? I was going to have to keep that knowledge to myself. I didn’t want to ruin the dreams of millions of little kids around the world by being the one to tell everyone what his personality was really like. I could barely handle my own being crushed every time he glared at me.
I stared at him.
“I’m always… aware,” he tried to claim.
I couldn’t help it, I whispered, “Even when you’re snoring?”
The glare I got…
“Kidding,” I said, flipping his hand over to wipe the skin on his palm. I knew better. I needed to stop. “It’s a joke. I had to check your wrist a few times to make sure you were still breathing, but I’m sure you’re aware of that.” Lies. “Look, I’m too young to die. That’s all.” At least that’s what I wanted to believe.
“No dying,” The Defender muttered.
I didn’t believe him, not when he might be the one to wring my neck if I didn’t get him his steak and chicken. I had other people to worry about doing the job too, but he didn’t need to know that.
Just as I opened my mouth to reluctantly agree that I believed him, he started to strain on the bed like he wanted to lie down.
Catching him wincing, I helped him. His groans and low-key moans filled the room. There was something really wrong, and we both knew it, but he was in denial for whatever reason. I lifted one heavy leg after the other onto the mattress, helping him until he managed to lie flat on his back.
The Defender’s face relaxed almost instantly, and a feeling of dread got to me again. My grandma used to say that I’d been born with a hint of intuition; then my grandpa would claim I’d gotten it from his side. He never really talked about his family, but when he did, he always brought up his own grandmother. According to him, she had known things that were going to happen before they did. Grandma had always made skeptical faces when she overheard him whispering about her to me, but I was pretty sure he believed what he’d seen and heard.
He had always loved telling me stories, and I’d loved listening to all of them.
He’d had countless stories about traveling through South America as a little boy. Looking back on it now, it was his way of taking me to all those places we couldn’t visit together because he hadn’t wanted me to get a passport. It would have been just one more thing in a system that someone might be able to track, so no passport for me.
It was such bullshit.
And I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
For now, I wanted to get this guy better and out of here as quickly as possible. Then I could leave and start over again. By myself.
“Want some more water?” I asked him just as he let out a shallow breath.
“In a minute,” he actually answered before leveling me with another long look out of the corner of his eye. “Have the…”
I waited.
“Rest of them been seen lately?”
“Them?”
“Like me.”
All right, so they didn’t call themselves the Trinity. Got it. “I haven’t turned on the TV because I didn’t want to wake you up. Do you want me to check?” It wasn’t that they made regular appearances or anything like that, because they didn’t. They didn’t appear for petty, common shit. Just the big stuff and the rare appearance of The Primordial or The Centurion doing some kind of community-service-type project. Plus, I’d been so busy keeping him alive, researching them, and making three times the amount of food that I regularly did, that I hadn’t kept up with the news. Stressing over him dying on me had been the only thing I’d been able to focus on lately.
That and the fact I was really, really worried I was making a mistake helping him.
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I did a quick search before peeking at his tight face. Then I told him about how The Primordial had been seen just yesterday, and he grunted in reply. He might have relaxed just a little too, but I wasn’t positive.
Regardless, it didn’t put me at ease.
None of this was putting me at ease at all.
CHAPTER
FOUR
His sleepy eyes started to drift closed.
I’d been reading him the articles I’d found about The Primordial for the last half-hour. He’d been paying attention at first, but after the fourth one, he’d either started zoning out or his thoughts had drifted elsewhere.
So that was cool.
Turning off my screen, I glanced at the superbeing on my bed, in my clothes, and before I could stop myself, I asked, “Can I call you Defender, or is there something else you would rather be referred to as?”
Dammit, I wasn’t supposed to ask for more information than what I needed.
I couldn’t backtrack now though, could I? That would be even more fishy. I made myself smile at him weakly. “I won’t tell anyone. Promise.” That sounded real believable. I needed to keep my mouth closed. I knew this. I knew it. I’d just… been alone for too long. Talking to my students wasn’t the same as having a conversation with a friend.