When I hear the door close I shove out of the bed, grab the IV pole, and drag it along with me. I slip my boots on and walk out of the room towards the hallway. I can hear music playing and I smirk when I recognize the rock music. That helps explain the dreads.
I round the corner and watch her for a second as she tosses some trash into the garbage can. I can’t help but let my eyes wander over her body. She’s fit. It looks like she works out. Fuck if I know.
“Jesus,” she screams when she spins around and sees me standing there.
Her eyes roam over me from head to toe. Surprisingly she doesn’t stop to linger on the scars on the right side of my face. I earned the name Monster when I was twelve. Not only was I bigger than most kids, but I sported burn scars over the right side of my face and neck thanks to a meth explosion in my mom’s kitchen. Everyone feared me after that. They always looked at me like I was a monster and the name just stuck. Not her though, she isn’t looking at me the way everyone else does. She’s looking at me the way a woman looks at a man.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I tell her while watching her breathing slowly return back to normal.
“It’s fine. I almost forgot I had a house guest,” she says while smiling at me. Her bright blue eyes shine lined with dark black makeup.
“You don’t look at me like the rest of them,” I mutter under my breath.
It’s bothering me. When a woman looks at me like I’m the scariest thing she’s ever seen I can handle it. I’m used to that. She’s just looking at me like I’m, well me.
“What do you mean? The rest of who?” She asks, her brows pull in as her eyes narrow and she looks into my eyes.
My eyes, not my face. I’m so used to the opposite that I don’t know how to handle her. I’m on edge just being here, but this makes it so much worse. This is why I wanted to stay in the dark where I belong.
“Paul’s worried about you,” ignoring her question I ask one of my own. Her features relax as she smiles back at me.
“He’s always worried,” she replies as she continues to clean. “What’s he worried about now? Am I spending too much time here again?”
My eyes follow her every movement as she lifts boxes and pushes things away.
“Yeah. He thinks you don’t have any friends or family,” I add. She sets the box on her hip before she turns to look at me.
“I don’t have any family or friends, I’m more of a loner. Friends are nothing but complications and drama. That’s just not who I am.”
If nothing else, this girl is honest. I like that. Hell, I like her.
“That seems about right. You grow up around here?”
She shakes her head and walks past me with the box still on her hip. I follow her down the hall when she moves into another room.
“I grew up in a lot of places. I don’t really call any one place home. What about you? You from around here?” she asks but she never looks over at me. Avoidance is always easier than the truth and she is currently avoiding the shit out of me.
“Nah. I moved down here from California.”
She turns to look at me with a slight smile.
“Really? Trading one hot climate for another?”
She seems genuinely interested.
“Somethin’ like that. Too many old ghosts back there,” I say as I point to my face.
She nods as if she understands before she leans back against the exam table and crosses her arms over her chest.
“What happened to you?”
“My mom was runnin’ a meth lab with her boyfriend. Shit blew up when they were both fucked up out of their minds. I was a little too close to the action,” I tell her as I remember that day like it was only yesterday. I can still remember the smell of my burning skin as I screamed and cried out for help.
“Christ that had to be scary for a kid.”
“It was. It was made even worse when my mom didn’t even wake up to find out what had happened. She died in that house.” Her eyes fall for a second before they come back up to meet mine.
“I’m sorry. Is that why you moved?”
“No. I lived in foster homes after that. The last one I lived in, well, let’s just say it ended kinda badly.”
She nods her head as if she can understand, but she can’t. There’s no fucking way anyone could understand what I had to endure while I was there. I still don’t fully understand it. The memories come flooding back like someone opened the goddamn flood gate. I sway on my feet and move to the wall so that I can stand against it and hold myself up. Kyza rushes toward me and wraps her hands around my arms.
“Are you okay? You don’t look so good. You need to sit down,” she says trying to usher me over to a chair.
After a second I let her. Once I sit I try to clear my head, but I can’t. I see him. It was him standing over my bed wearing a smirk like he’d won. There was blood. It was everywhere. Blood coated my skin and covered the pajamas I wore. There was so much fucking blood. I shake my head a few times, but I need to get out of here. I can’t handle this shit.
“I gotta go,” I say as I’m reaching for the IV.
“Don’t pull that out,” she gasps.
“I need to fuckin’ go.”
She nods her head and reaches for my arm. She raises a finger to me tell me to hold on a second before she moves across the room. She grabs a few bandages and bottles from a cabinet and comes back over to me. She sets the items in my lap and works to remove the IV from my arm, placing a band aid over the small wound. My heart is still pounding inside of my chest and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she heard it. She looks up at me through those big blue eyes, and I have to stifle my instinct to cringe. His eyes were that same color of blue. This is messing with my head. Fuck!
“At least take these pills like the bottle instructs.” I’m about to open my mouth when she stops me, “Please.”
The begging I can see in her eyes is what makes me snap. I lift my hand to her cheek and nod. There’s something dark in this girl, something that doesn’t belong there.
“I’m sorry. Whatever happened to you, I’m sorry,” my voice almost a whisper as a single tear falls down her cheek.
I remove my hand, shove out of the chair, and storm from the room and down the hall. I don’t stop until I’m outside and I can catch my breath. I grab my cell to call Viking and tell him to get someone over here to pick my ass up.
Four
Kyza
Each day forward is one more day away from my past. That’s the best I can do for now. I’ve closed myself off from those days, but that man brought every single second of my old life rushing back in a matter of seconds. I hate him for being able to do that to me. No one has ever broken through that barrier, and I let a complete stranger do it. It pissed me off at first, but then I just became angrier. I tried not to take it out on Paul, but I found myself snapping at him far too many times. I hate myself for that too. I’m whining as we speak and that just pushes my even more.
“I don’t want to go,” I whine a little more.
“Too bad. If I’m going then you are too,” he grins at me.