The Three (8 page)

“He was my first.” Anna flashed back on his face for a moment, his dark hair. “It didn’t even feel real to me.

I was knocked out only a minute or two later.”

“So they took it out on you.”

Anna rolled onto her back. Elin drew away to let her adjust, then repositioned herself with one arm across Anna’s chest and one leg insinuated between her thighs. “See?” she murmured as she settled her head down on Anna’s shoulder. “You’re getting good at this cuddling thing.”

Anna held her breath as her body reacted to the new position, humming in pleasure when she finally exhaled. After only a slight hesitation, she eased her arm around Elin’s narrow shoulders, grateful that Elin couldn’t see the rising color of her cheeks in the dark. “You make everything easy. Even talking.”

Elin lifted her head so she could look into Anna’s eyes. “I’m glad.”

Soaking up the warmth of the soft body pressed against hers, Anna stared up at the stars that were visible through the treetops over their heads. “I thought they were going to kill me,” she said eventually. “The third one, especially. He had a knife. That’s how I got the scars.”

Elin pressed the palm of her hand flat against Anna’s upper chest, just above the breast that bore two jagged white reminders of that day. “I wondered.” Her voice took on a profound sadness, and she nuzzled her face into the side of Anna’s other breast. “You’re beautiful, you know.”

Anna bit her lip as traitorous tears slipped from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t feel that way sometimes.”

“You are. So, so beautiful. Inside and out. Every line, every curve, every scar.”

“You’re the beautiful one.” Anna blushed at the boldness of her words, but Elin made her confident, and she let herself be carried along by that feeling. “I’ve never met such a beautiful person.”

Elin gave her a loving smile and leaned up to plant a slow kiss on her lips. Anna closed her eyes at the first touch of Elin’s mouth, trembling when the warm lips didn’t pull away until after long moments of breathless connection. Her heart thumped hard beneath Elin’s hand.

“How did you escape?” Elin asked when she’d settled back down with her head on Anna’s shoulder.

The question snapped her back into the moment, hitting her directly in the gut. “Garrett.”

“He found you?”

“He stopped them. One of them had left, and the other two were arguing about what to do with me. The man with the knife wanted to kill me. The first one wanted to take me with the other women from my tribe.”

She had lain on the ground, bleeding and in pain, listening to the two men argue her fate. She remembered praying they would just kill her. “Then, all of sudden I heard a sound. One of the men was on the ground.

Garrett killed the other one in front of me. He shoved his knife right into his stomach.”

“Thank God he was there.”

“Yeah. Thank God.” Recalling that terrible day, she felt a familiar pang of guilt. “It was too late to save the others. Garrett had been knocked out during the fighting, and they left him for dead. That’s how he came to survive and save me.”

“And then you lost him.” Elin’s voice broke with sorrow on her next words. “God, Anna, I’m so sorry, baby.”

“It was my fault.” Anna closed her eyes, even as she felt the unburdening of a giant weight from her soul at the confession. “There were only three of them, not many. They ambushed us while we were eating. I don’t know what happened. One minute we were fighting, then the next…Garrett got hit. Right in the head, like the man I killed. I watched him fall. I knew right away that he was dead.”

“That’s not your fault,” Elin whispered. “You were outnumbered. Please don’t ever think it was your fault.”

“He saved my life. I couldn’t save his.”

“Sometimes there’s nothing you can do to stop something horrible from happening.” Elin stayed curled around Anna’s body, her steady heartbeat thumping against Anna’s side. “You can’t play God, no matter how much you may wish you could. And that means you can’t accept that responsibility, either.”

“But I did play God.” Anna swallowed in a desperate attempt to moisten her throat and ease the way for a final confession. “I went crazy. I killed every one of them. I still don’t know how I did it. It was like I was possessed. Judge, jury, executioner…they killed Garrett, and so I made sure they died.”

“Do you feel guilty about that?”

Anna met Elin’s gaze in the dark. Her eyes shone with empathetic emotion. “Only that I don’t feel more guilty, I think.”

“Do you feel better now that you’ve said it out loud?”

Anna didn’t even have to think about that one. “Yeah.” She stared deep into Elin’s eyes. “Do you…are you—” Do I disgust you?

“I love you, Anna.” Elin brushed away Anna’s fears with three little words. “You’re a survivor. You’ve got a good heart. You’ve had a lot of bad things happen to you, but you’re a good person. I know I haven’t known you long, but…I love you very much.”

Anna started to cry, but these were different from any tears she’d ever shed before. It was joy. It welled up inside of her, filling her heart until she had no choice but to release the pressure through quiet sobbing. “I love you, too,” she managed to say, and grabbed Elin with both arms, holding on tight.

Elin cooed nonsense words of comfort into her ear and stroked her hair, slow and measured, until Anna nearly felt hypnotized by the peace her touch instilled. “Close your eyes, baby,” she whispered after some time, and Anna was helpless to do anything but obey. “Let’s see if we can’t get a couple more hours of sleep, okay? I promise nothing is going to hurt you tonight.”

Believing every word that came out of Elin’s mouth, Anna slipped into an exhausted, but surprising, slumber. There were no more dreams that night.

Two days outside of Sullivan, an hours-long hike through thick forest ended with the most spectacular view of a sparkling blue lake. Kael broke through the trees first and stopped, staring out at the water while he wiped sweat from his brow. Elin and Anna followed, and their friendly chatter died as they took in the blue horizon.

“Wow.” Elin put her hand on Kael’s lower back and grinned behind his shoulders at Anna, who stood on his other side gazing open-mouthed at the stretch of water.

“I don’t know about you girls,” Kael drawled, “but I could really use a bath.”

Elin grabbed his hand and lifted it into the air, ducking her head to take a whiff of his underarm. She wrinkled her nose. “That’s the truth.”

He spun around, grabbed her around the waist, and tickled her sides. “You’re feeling a little sweaty there yourself, sweet girl.”

Anna grinned at their easy affection and swiped the back of her hand across her forehead. Droplets of perspiration rolled down her hairline, a testament to the arduous walking they’d done that day.

“Well, you’re making it worse!” Elin twisted out of Kael’s grip and took Anna’s hand. “A bath sounds fantastic to me. How about you?”

Without waiting for an answer, she led Anna down the gentle hill to shore, calling back to Kael over her shoulder, “It’s okay to swim here?”

“I don’t think there’s anyone around. We should be fine. How about we walk out to that vantage point before we get in? Then we can easily see if anyone’s approaching.”

Elin nodded and tugged Anna along to the spot Kael indicated. Anna kept her eyes forward, already feeling awkward about the idea of bathing in front of Kael. She had never gotten naked in front of a man before.

The idea of seeing him naked was also vaguely unsettling.

Elin stopped when they reached a stretch of land that jutted out into the water and formed a wide area of treeless shore. Stepping in front of Anna, she took both her hands and gave them a gentle squeeze.

“You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

Anna managed a weak smile. “Nervous, yeah.”

“About Kael? Or are you still nervous about being naked with me, too?”

“I’m not nervous with you.” That much was true. Her comfort with Elin was absolute. And it wasn’t that she didn’t trust Kael, but memories of her worst flashback still lingered in her head.

She started to explain, but Elin looked over her shoulder to Kael and exchanged a nod with him. “Anna, there’s something we want to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“Sweetheart, I want you to look at Kael.”

“Elin?” Why should I look at him? Has he started undressing?

“Please just trust me.”

Anna turned to see Kael standing less than ten feet behind them. He rubbed at the back of his neck with his hand, uncharacteristically shy, then he dropped his hands to grip the bottom of his T-shirt and pulled it off over his head. He wore a sports bra beneath.

Anna blinked as the sports bra was torn off and discarded. She didn’t see it fall; she was too focused on the small, delicate-looking breasts Kael had revealed. Female breasts.

Kael stared at her with a naked vulnerability that shook Anna to the core. All at once the cocky, self-assured man who had defeated four thugs with unthinking ease was reduced to trembling hands, tense broad shoulders, and a reddened face.

Uncertain of what else to do, Anna continued to watch. The blue jeans went next, eased down over narrow hips and kicked away by a long leg. Coarse dark hair covered pale shins and thighs, disappearing beneath the navy blue boxer shorts that Kael wore. Anna met Kael’s uneasy gaze and gave him an uncertain smile.

Kael hooked both thumbs in the waistband of the boxer shorts and pushed them down to fall around his ankles. His eyes dropped as well, and he stared so hard at the ground that Anna swore he would split the earth open with his gaze. It only took a moment for her to shift her attention to the triangle of curly dark hair between Kael’s legs, where she didn’t see what she had expected to see.

She looked at Elin in numb shock. “I don’t understand.” She glanced back to Kael, who was trying and failing to look nonchalant about his nudity. Her nudity. With some confusion, she remembered the way that Elin had ridden astride Kael that first night. She shook her head, unable to put the pieces together in any way that made sense.

“Kael feels more comfortable living as a man,” Elin explained in a gentle voice. “It’s really a lot easier when people assume she’s male, and people always do.”

Kael folded her arms over her breasts. “I’m going to get in the water,” she mumbled. “You two can follow me when you’re ready.”

Anna was silent as Kael stalked to the shore and strode into the water until she was waist deep, then dove beneath the surface to swim away from them.

“I know this must come as a surprise,” Elin said, “and I’m sorry we lied to you. But since she escaped, Kael has always presented herself as a man. You’re only the second person to know, after me.”

Anna shook her head. “But I saw…you were—”

Elin raised an interested eyebrow. “What?”

Anna wore a fierce blush when she realized what she was trying to explain to Elin. “Um, no. It’s nothing.

Never mind.”

One side of Elin’s mouth twitched. “ ‘Fess up. You saw what?”

Anna glanced out at the water, making sure that Kael was far enough away, and leaned close to murmur into Elin’s ear, “The first night, I couldn’t sleep and, well, I don’t understand how…”

“You saw us making love?” Elin’s eyes danced with amusement.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to watch, but—”

“You’re confused because you saw me riding him.”

Anna’s face burned. “Well, yeah.”

Elin tipped her head back and released a musical peal of laughter. “I’m sorry, you’re just so—” When Anna looked down, humiliated, Elin grabbed her hand. “You’re wonderful, really.” She leaned over to give Anna a soft kiss on the lips. “To answer your question, Kael and I spent some time in Michigan last year. We picked something up in a shop in Ann Arbor. A toy and a harness for strapping it on.” Tilting her head, she stroked her thumb over the side of Anna’s hand. “Do you know what I mean?”

Anna wasn’t entirely sure she understood how such a thing would work, but she imagined that these objects helped Kael simulate the anatomy of a biological male. She wondered what kind of store would have carried something like that. “Um, yeah. I get it.”

“You don’t have a problem with this, do you? That we’re both women?”

“You know I don’t.” A sudden, strong feeling of safety overwhelmed her. “I never thought I would meet another woman who…felt the same way I did.”

“A woman who loves other women?”

“Yes,” Anna whispered. Speaking her own secret for the first time since one teenaged afternoon with Garrett, she felt her whole body relax and she broke into an unthinking grin at the joy of it. “Or who hopes to.”

Elin gave her a sly smile, then stepped back and stripped off her T-shirt. “We should probably think about getting in the water. I’m sure Kael would appreciate not being the only one who’s naked and swimming.”

Anna managed a nod as Elin reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. She didn’t even try to tear her eyes from Elin’s bare breasts when her pink nipples darkened and contracted under her heated stare.

Finally dragging her gaze to Elin’s face, she said, “It was hard for Kael to take off his…her clothes in front of me, wasn’t it?”

Elin nodded, cheeks rosy after Anna’s intense appraisal. “Yeah, it was. He’s shy about his body.”

The words bolstered Anna’s courage, so she pulled off her own T-shirt and cast it to the ground. “Um, does Kael prefer to be called ‘he’?” She kept her hands moving, trying not to concentrate on the fact that she was baring her body.

“Kael…can go either way. If it’s just the three of us, it’s okay to acknowledge that Kael is a woman. He doesn’t mind. But in general, I use male pronouns. He likes it, and it’s less confusing that way. It’s also safer if we’re in a situation where there’s any chance we could be overheard.”