Savaged

“The hikers who found me couldn’t say exactly where, but the authorities picked us up here,” she said, tapping the map. “It all pointed to my parents’ car being in this area. I’ve never typically searched any farther than this because the river veers off here”—she tapped the map again—“into Amity Falls. I obviously didn’t tumble into a three-hundred-foot waterfall or I’d be dead. The helicopters focused their initial search here too.” Harper tapped the pen against her teeth again, thinking. After a moment, she released a frustrated breath. “In any case, I still don’t know what any of this has to do with my parents being murdered. I just thought maybe drawing it all out might help in some way.”

Lucas was quiet, his eyes remaining on the map in front of them, the candle flickering over it, casting the peaks and valleys that might hold answers to the many questions swirling around them both, in light and shadow. When he met her eyes again, his expression was grave, a hint of apprehension in the set of his mouth.

“I think I saw the helicopters that were looking for your parents. And if I did, then I was left here on the same night your parents were murdered.”

A spear of shock arrowed through Harper. “How is that . . . Are you sure? That seems highly . . . I don’t know, coincidental?”

“I’ve never seen helicopters again. And they were flying right over this spot.” He pointed to the place on the map where she’d said she always thought her parents’ car had crashed.

Harper’s gaze stayed on the spot where his index finger had tapped for a moment before looking up at him. She was completely bewildered. How was it possible that they’d both ended up out here on the same night? Her rescued. Him . . . not.

“I, uh . . .” He pressed his lips together, his eyes deep and dark in the flickering candlelight. “I’ve been lying to you. Lying to the agent.”

She blinked. “Lying?” she whispered, fear spiking. “About what?”

“About my name. My name isn’t Lucas. It’s Jak.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Harper blinked at Jak, her pink lips taking the shape of an O as she took the pen from between her teeth. He was nervous, but even still, his blood caught fire at the look of her mouth parted that way.

“Jak? I don’t understand. Why did you call yourself Lucas?” She looked worried, and it made him feel . . . he didn’t know the word, but he knew the last thing he wanted to do was scare her when she was alone with him. Especially when he kept thinking about her lips and how much he liked sitting right next to her, inhaling her sweet, woman scent and—

He stood quickly, moving away from her, leaning against the wall by the window. “I told the truth when I said I don’t know my last name. I think a woman named Alma or Almara or Almina named me, but I don’t know for sure. She did raise me, though, until I was almost eight, and I called her Baka. She talked in a different language sometimes. I don’t know which one, and I don’t know where we lived or why I was taken from her.”

Harper’s mouth stayed in the same surprised O, her eyes wide as she listened. “What do you mean you were taken from her?”

“I mean, I ended up out here, and I don’t know how or why.” That much was true too. He wasn’t ready to tell her the rest, not yet.

“Do you think she, your baka, dropped you off here?”

“I . . . don’t know.”

She looked so confused. “It doesn’t make any sense. Who was your mother? Your father?”

He paused. “My mother gave me up to my baka, I think. I don’t know. And . . . I don’t know anything about my father.”

“Why did you lie? Don’t you want help figuring this all out?”

He let out a breath, running his fingers through his hair. He wanted to tell her about the cliff, and the war that wasn’t, and how he’d been lied to, but he didn’t know yet what was okay to hold back and what was okay to tell.

Don’t tell anyone I’ve been here, okay?

“I lied because I don’t know who to trust,” he admitted. He wanted to trust her, he realized, and part of him already did. It was the wanting that surprised him when he’d only trusted himself for so long. But he did, he wanted to watch her large, dark eyes fill with . . . understanding. He wanted to share his worries and troubles with another person. He just wasn’t sure it should be this woman, who made him feel unsure of himself, made his blood run hot in his veins.

The woman he wanted to call his own.

Her eyes ran over his face like she could read the answers to the questions she had by just looking at him. Not yet, an inner knowing told him. But soon if you let her. He turned away, grabbing a can of food she’d brought with her the last time and turning around. “Are you hungry?”

He didn’t know if he could—or should—fully trust her, but he could feed her, even if she had been the one to bring the food.

Harper glanced at the can and then back to him. “Yes,” she murmured. “Lucas . . . Jak . . . which do you prefer?”

“I’ve lived my life as Jak. Until . . . I went to the . . . sheriff building.”

Her brow wrinkled. “Then . . . Jak, I want you to know that you can trust me. I’d like to help you if you’ll let me.” She looked back at the can he was still holding. “And yes, I’d love some dinner.”

It was dark outside now, and the candles were making shadows on the walls. How many times had Jak sat at this table, eating a meal, and it’d felt cold and lonely? Especially after Pup died. Especially then. But now, he felt a closeness with another person that he’d never felt before. It made him feel peaceful. It made him feel terrified. It made him think of the family who had been taken from him, or that he’d watched walk away, and the memories made an icy-cold knife slice slowly through him, cutting, tearing, just like all the cuts and wounds that had made scars on his skin. He shouldn’t get attached to this woman, because he didn’t want to feel pain when she left.