Concealed Force

Chapter 6

Sun crept around the edge of the curtains, and Laura watched dust motes dance in the beams. It was morning, but there was no noise coming from the compound. The word compound rang in her mind, making her heart beat harder.

The events that had led her there flashed behind her eyes. Strange men in the car, her father gone, running, being caught, the time in the trunk and then the back of a truck, waiting in the bathroom for her captor to return. A man she wanted, but hardly dared, to trust.

And yet she'd fallen asleep, and it hadn't taken long. The exhaustion of the day before, winning out over her anxiety. She wished she had some way to tell the time, but she didn't have a watch and her phone was gone, likely melted into nothing inside a burned-out car, along with all her luggage.

She knew she shouldn't care about things considering her situation, but she couldn't help mourning the loss of some of her favorite clothes—a soft lilac sweater that she'd never be able to replace and band t-shirts that reminded her of festivals she'd been to over the last few years of school. There were books in her case too, one she'd been halfway through, one that had been her mother's and was full of her beloved handwriting.

Not wanting to dwell on that she turned her head to look at Reid and found he was awake, staring up at the ceiling. He was just as breathtakingly good looking as he'd been last night, but in the filtered light he looked younger, and she wondered how old he was.

There was a scar under his lower lip, and another on the bridge of his nose, the kind you saw on boxing champions. He'd told Lonnie he could fight.

"Hey," he said in a whisper, still not looking at her.

"Is it time to get up?"

"Nah. Go back to sleep."

"Are you going to?"

He shrugged, shoulders shifting against the starchy sheets.

"Have you slept at all?"

"A little. I don't need much."

She was aware of the heat of him, and a smell of sweat, that should have been off-putting, but wasn't, it was spicy and it was... reassuring.

She rolled her eyes at herself. So apparently sleep hadn't helped her reorient her emotions, she was still reacting to everything the opposite way to how she should, she was still clinging to the idea that this man would save her.

"Are you...trying to come up with a plan?"

He shushed her and she covered her mouth with her hand. She'd forgotten, briefly, that proper talking could only be done with some other noise to drown them out.

He turned the TV on with the remote, finding the Weather Channel and turning up the volume, then looked at her, his gaze lazy, his beard darker, growing longer. His eyes were a deep golden color, like whiskey or maple syrup. But was he drugging or sweet? That was the question.

"Better not discuss plans," he said. "You want to chat, keep it neutral."

She cleared her throat, trying to think what to say. "Did you get used to less sleep in prison? I mean, is it hard to sleep there?" She wasn't sure why she was asking, except to remind herself that he was a hardened criminal.

"Sometimes." He kept his voice a whisper and she could only just hear him over the TV. Surely no one else would be able to hear.

"Did you have friends there?"

"Depends what you mean by friends."

"People you could rely on."

"Yeah, mostly."