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“And I don’t need a barrier. I’m not hiding anything from the Others. They’re my family.”
    I only nod, unwilling to upset him and have him retract this opportunity to see my friends. He evaporates from his sinum briefly, leaving me alone less than five minutes before he reappears with a dazed-looking, filthy Pax.
    That slow smile squeezes my heart with joy. Until my eyes roam downward and find the gaping wounds bleeding through the slashes in his thin t-shirt.

 
     
    Chapter 6.
     

     
    Deshi leaves, but I hardly notice. I throw myself into Pax’s arms, wrapping mine around the solid breadth of him to make sure he’s really here. The warm sunshine of his aura wraps around me; the comforting scent of apples and cinnamon piles into my nose until it diffuses through my blood.
    He sets me gently away after a moment, wincing but trying to cover it up with a smile. “Wow, I never thought I’d enjoy seeing you more than I did the first time we met.”
    I swat his arm, my cheeks heating at the memory. Pax will never let me forget that he’s seen me naked, probably not even if we live through this and see our hundredth birthdays. My embarrassment distracts me, but not for long. “What happened to you?”
    “Me? What happened to you?” he asks, running a soft finger across the bridge of my nose.
    I haven’t thought about it in days; my nose stopped hurting a while ago. It must still bear the scars of Deshi shoving me face-first into the wall. “Nothing. It’s nothing, and it happened a while ago. This is obviously still happening.”
    He looks down when I point at the open cuts across his skin. There are too many of them for it to have been an accident, or a single torture. I can see in Pax’s face that he doesn’t want to tell me, and he’s saved when Deshi reappears.
    The scent of pine trees and fresh snow spins me around. Lucas’s face—tired, pale skin streaked with dirt, still bearing the barely-healed gash along his jaw from Kendaja’s touch, but beautiful—rips a sob from my throat. Relief and joy, exactly what’s pumping through my veins, fill his eyes and we crash into each other with two steps.
    Lucas’s cold arms wrap around my back, squeezing me so tight against his chest I can’t breathe. It’s okay. I don’t need to breathe. This is my air, what sustains me—this feeling of perfect belonging in his arms.
    “You’re really here,” he breathes into my hair.
    “Where you are, I am.” My voice breaks.
    My tears are hot, even steaming a little in the frigid air coming off Lucas. Even though Deshi and Pax are there, Lucas presses my face between his hands and crushes his lips against mine. I want to sob into him, to never let go, and the kiss is too short.
    We don’t say anything more. Words don’t matter.
    Deshi clears his throat, and Lucas and I tear our eyes from each other. “I’ll leave you alone for ten minutes. I think that’s all we can afford. The Wardens are in a meeting, but not everyone is. If Zak or Kenda need me and can’t find me, they’ll look here first. So, ten minutes.”
    It doesn’t escape me that Deshi is risking something here, even if he’s acting as though it’s no big deal. He won’t meet Pax’s eyes, but he can’t stop the curious glances sliding over Lucas and me, down to our linked hands.
    When he raises his gaze to my face, I latch on. “Thank you, Deshi.”
    He nods quickly, disappearing as the boys echo my sentiment.
    Pax strides over to the opening, peering both directions down the corridors. When he turns and comes back to us, he slings an arm around Lucas’s neck. “No one’s out there. It’s good to see you guys.”
    Lucas grins and goes to elbow Pax in the ribs. The weeping blood stops him. “What happened to you?”
    Pax sighs. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
    “Pax, come on. We only have ten minutes, don’t waste half of it making us force you to talk,” I prod.
    Maybe he doesn’t want to share, and maybe there’s