She was proud of him in a way, for whatever reason he hadn’t peeked into her past. Whether it was respect for her or just simply he didn’t have to unyielding need to know everything like she did, he’d respected her privacy. The realization pulled a small smile onto her lips and she pressed a kiss to his chest before continuing.
“Well, I was. I was born in Bombay to an abusive father and…I guess what you could call an absent mother. My grandmother took care of my brother and I mostly. She is, in so many ways, the only reason why I’m here today. Without her I’m certain my mother’s negligence would have killed me eventually.” She paused, trying to piece together the next part of the story; she had been so young.
“One day, a friend of my brother’s showed up at our shack. He’d just found my grandmother’s mutilated corpse a few blocks away. She’d been coming back from the market with food for the dinner I had requested and some thugs had thought it would be fun to murder an old woman and steal her groceries.” Her throat was tight as she told the story, the memory still raw despite the many years. “I was 8 years old when my grandmother died. My brother, 10 at the time, convinced me to run away with him. Mother and Father wouldn’t really care for us, certainly we could do better than them, right? I believed him. I knew we could make it together if we were careful and worked hard. So we left that same night. Middle of the night, with nothing more than a backpack of things we figured we might need.”
“Moving forward 6 years, we had actually done well for ourselves. We had our own shack, miles away from our parents, and we made enough from pickpocketing and doing odd jobs to live. It wasn’t the best life, but it was ours and we were together. We told each other everything. He would read to me every night before we went to sleep. He taught me how to read and write and do everything he could. He was my best friend.”
Her throat grew tighter this time and she fought to swallow down the lump that had grown there. He needed to know. “One day, we were making our way back home when a gang war broke out near our street. Now, there were multiple ways to get to the shack, but I figured sliding between some of the tightly packed houses would be the safest. I led us around the battle and to a street not too far from our house. Except when I went to cross the street, I made a noise that attracted the gang members; kicked a can accidentally. They didn’t even pause to ask questions, they just shot. I wasn’t touched….but Amir died instantly.” She had to pause again, a tear threatening to fall at the reminder of the worst day of her life. “I watched as the life drained from his eyes. As he…went from my brother to a corpse. It was my fault he died. Just like it had been my fault my grandmother had died.”
She looked up at him for the first time since starting her tale, her lips a thin line and nerves making her jaw quiver slightly. “People I care about, people I love? They don’t live long, Ryan. Just being near me, influenced by me, is enough to get them killed pretty quick.” Suddenly she couldn’t look at him anymore, the fear returning to full strength again as she gazed at the man she loved. Her head sunk down to rest against his chest, her voice muffled by his skin. “I left because I was afraid of it happening to you. I…figured if I left, you might be safe. I kept such a close eye on you the entire time we were apart, checking to make sure you were eating, keeping out of trouble, that the Alliance was giving you good jobs but keeping you out of the dangerous ones.” She took a shuddering breath in, her nerves finally shot. “I couldn’t let what happened to them happen to you.”
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