Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 51 - BACK WE GO

"No," I said.

That stumped him. He scowled, still without looking in my direction, and he started to pick at the scabs on his hands while he tried to think of another way to get me out of the tent. I lounged back in my chair, perfectly happy to wait.

If he was too tired for a conversation, he would have just said so. That was what Eira did. These days, she only had to breathe a certain way - that heaving, slow, exhausted sigh - and I'd shut my mouth.

Rhodri wasn't tired. He was alert and bright-eyed, and he looked properly awake for the first time now that he was being eased off the worst of the painkillers. He was getting better. Everyone said so. He wasn't okay yet, but he was definitely better.

"I don't want to talk to you," Rhodri muttered eventually. "I don't even want to look at you."

"Because..." I prompted, not very gently.

"Because I'm not sure if this is real."

He said it calmly. He said it without any of the raw emotion I would have expected to accompany a statement like that. He said it like it wasn't even a big deal, and perhaps it wasn't, as far as he was concerned. He'd been tortured, his body was damaged beyond repair, and he was living in constant, unimaginable pain. That was a lot for a seventeen-year-old to cope with. So it wasn't hard to believe that he had bigger problems at the moment.

"Shit, Rhodri," I said.

He shrugged. Again, like it didn't even matter.

"They were trying to get in my head. The whole time, they were trying. Maybe they succeeded," he said. "Because it doesn't really make sense that I got out, does it? How would I have got out? No one even knew I was there."

I didn't really know what to say to that. Nothing I could say was going to convince him, and why should it? If he didn't trust his own mind, how was he supposed to trust me? Instead of trying, I placed my hand over his and sent a stream of memories through the link.

It began outside the packhouse and ended with a car door closing. Most of the memories were hazy and blurred and choppy, because that morning had been one long panic, so I wasn't sure how much of it Rhodri would understand. His face crumpled into a frown as the seconds passed.

"Is that really what I look like?" he asked. "Shit..."

I offered him a wry smile, realising too late that he wouldn't see it. "Is that your biggest worry right now?"

Rhodri sighed heavily. "No. I guess not."

It was true that he was a mess. A lot of the cuts had scabbed over, but the bruises were just getting into their stride. Where his tattoo had been, there was a series of crusted, weeping sores where they had peeled the skin away. All his surgeries hadn't been able to disguise the hateful words they'd carved into his arms. I wondered when I was going to stop feeling guilty every time I looked at him.

I gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "It's over, okay? You didn't talk. They did all of ... this, and you kept your mouth shut, and that is the only reason I'm alive. It's the only reason Liam's alive. I won't forget that, Rhodri. Not ever."

He flinched at Liam's name, because he still didn't believe me. I could see that. He looked like he wanted to cry - with the first hints of a sniffle and tightness around his eyes. That scared me a little, because it had been years since I'd seen him cry. He wasn't the crying sort.

I needed to fix this. Sooner rather than later. Words weren't going to sway him, so I changed tactics by making a grab for his face. He tried to reach up and stop me, but there was so much nerve damage in his arms that it was a slow, clumsy effort. I was quicker, and my fingers caught his cheek, turning it towards me.