Then his eyes landed on me, and though the blank expression on his face didn’t disappear, the confusion did.
He walked to me and sat down, his eyes dark and haunted.
“Wyett.”
I licked my lips.
“Hunt,” I said softly. “It’s good to see you.”
His head tilted slightly, as if he couldn’t agree with me.
“What brings you here?” he asked, sounding distant.
He also felt different. As if the man that had gone into this place wasn’t the same man that’d come to me now.
My eyes trailed over his face, his eyes, then down his neck. It paused on a scar on his throat, and my eyes lowered.
He cleared that throat where the scar hung, causing my eyes to come up to his.
“I wanted to give you a little update,” I said softly.
His head tilted.
“Last week somebody came by and did a few things in your office,” she said. “But since he was on your approved list of people that could come in, I allowed it.”
He nodded. “Fellow hacker and the man that taught me everything I know. Everything was good?”
I nodded too. “I guess? He didn’t cry out in alarm or anything. He was in and out in about two hours. The dogs didn’t like him, though.”
That got a flash of a smile from the man’s lips.
The man that was very quick to smile before, wasn’t so quick now.
I really wanted to know why.
“Anyway,” I continued. “The dogs are doing well. I took them to their six-month checkup last month like you specified in the paperwork. Though, I have to admit, they’re both depressed.”
Hunt’s shoulders fell slightly, but he didn’t say anything to my announcement.
I wouldn’t know what to say either.
I continued to fill him in on everything that had happened since he’d been gone, and when I finally got done, he’d said no more than five words.
After I was out of things to talk about, I couldn’t stand it anymore.
I reached over and touched his throat.
“What happened?” I asked softly.
“No touching,” a guard barked, making me jump.
Hunt’s jaw tensed in annoyance at the guard’s rude growl behind me.
He didn’t have to do all that barking. I’d already put my hand down by the time he’d even said anything.
Only when the guard had gone back to wherever he’d come from did Hunt reply with, “Shiv.”
I blinked. “What?”
“A shiv,” he said. “They tried to cut my throat the first week I was in here.”
My mouth all but fell onto the floor.
“They what?” I gasped in outrage.
“Shiv. First week I was in here,” he repeated, as if that was what I was really asking.
It wasn’t.
He knew it.
I knew it.
“How… why?” I stiffened.
His lips formed into a small smile. “Because they could. There doesn’t have to be a reason. I was new. Big. Intimidating. They didn’t want me to think that I was big man on the totem pole because of my size, so they made sure to let me know.”
Anger rooted itself inside of me.
How could they?
“Are you safe now?” I asked, horror written all over my face.
His lips twitched. “Let’s just say I updated my will. If anything happens to me in here, you’re my sole inheritor.”
That didn’t make me feel better about the situation.
Not one fucking bit.
“I don’t like that,” I admitted.
His lips turned into a cruel smile. “Neither do I.”
• • •
Eight months later
He looked rougher than he had before.
After my first visit, I’d made it a mission of mine to go see him once a month. Sometimes even more than that if I could hack it.
Except, I’d gotten sick last month and had missed our visit.
So sick, in fact, that I was still trying to regain my strength.
Apparently, I’d caught my first casualty of war—pneumonia—from nursing school.
I’d missed almost an entire week of school because I’d been hospitalized—thank God for the health insurance that Hunt paid for. The week that I was hospitalized had included the day that I usually visited Hunt.
And I’d seriously been looking forward to my visit. Even sick and out of my mind from a fever, he’d been all that I could think about. Even now, I was so excited about the visit that I could barely think straight.
I wasn’t sure if he was as bummed as I had been, but for sure I knew that I was pretty freakin’ sad about missing it.
I’d come to really rely on those dates.
He may not say much when I was there, but I got to be in his presence.
And his presence made me feel like I was on top of the world.
I wasn’t sure what it was about the man that caused it, but seriously, I enjoyed the hell out of being with him, even if it was just talking in the visitation room for a short while.
I would’ve been there, sooner, too. However, the last two times that I’d tried to come, the prison had been shut down to outside visitors due to riots.