Dark Child (Wild Men 5)

She grins at me. “Especially that last one?”

“All of it,” I say, I find I really mean it.

We eat and climb on top of my bed to watch a movie. I lie on my back, propping my head on two pillows, dragging the laptop on my lap, and she snuggles beside me.

I wrap an arm around her, pulling her closer. I like this. Never done it with any girl before. I like how she fits in the curve of my arm, against my side, how she lays her head on my chest and draws circles with her finger on my stomach.

Talking was good, even if it wasn’t long. Take it slow, right? I’m starting to get a faint picture of who she is, where she’s coming from. I have so many questions about her sister and why Cos took her place a few times, about their mom and the pain I sense there.

But lying here with her eases something inside me I didn’t know had been wound up tight for so long. Maybe all my life.

Clash of the Titans starts to play, and she sighs, rubbing her cheek on my pec.

“You’re

like a kitten,” I tell her.

I’m watching the screen, but not seeing the movie. It happens to me every time we watch a movie together. Kinda makes me wonder why I bother—but she seems to enjoy it, and I enjoy having her half-draped over me. Just having her near is enough to make me smile.

“My sis has a kitten.” Her words are small puffs of breath on my skin. “I told you about her. I may need to take her home with me.”

“Your sister?”

“The kitten. My sister is more and more away now, and the kitty stays all alone.”

“Need me to take the kitten in?”

She lifts her head, eyes wide. “You’d look after the kitty?”

I shrug. “I’d have to clear it up with JC first, see he’s not allergic or anything like that.”

She smiles the brightest smile ever. Plops back down.

“I kinda like you, Mercury,” she whispers.

I grin.

She rests her cheek back on my chest and trails her fingertips over my hand that’s lying on top of my stomach.

The movie plays on. There’s a battle. Lots of monsters. Blood pours in rivers, arcs out of wounds, splashes on clothes and bodies.

I blink, an echo of a scream in my ears.

“You have a scar here,” she says, and I jerk.

“What?”

“A scar, on your hand.” She turns my hand over, traces the scar in my palm. “What happened here?”

Searing pain in my hand. Darkness. Panic.

“It’s an old scar,” I whisper. “I… I’m not sure how I got it.” My scars, one on my palm, and one on my arm. Old and half-forgotten.

“I have one here,” she says, and rubs her knee, though I can’t see the scar because of the black tights she’s wearing. “I fell off a swing when I was five. Me and Sophie, we were competing to see who could swing up higher.”

I chuckle and turn my eyes back to the laptop screen, and the movie before she asks me again how I got mine.

Not all scars are visible, I think. Not all scars are fun.