Elias simply sits there, hands in his lap as he watches me pace back and forth. I can’t tell what he’s thinking or feeling and not knowing chokes me.

“Where have you been?” I finally ask, and the question comes out as a desperate ache.

“I was with the Recruiters,” he says. He opens his mouth to say more but the sound just dies.

“I know, but …” There are too many ways for me to finish that statement. But what took so long? But why didn’t you come home earlier?

But why did you leave me?

And I realize that I’m going to have to ask him, because otherwise I’ll always feel this uncertainty. “Why did you go?” I whisper.

Chapter XIX

I feel it fresh all over again: the moment he said he’d joined the Recruiters and was leaving. How ugly and useless it made me feel.

He sighs, and when I look at him he’s jumped to his feet and is standing by the door with his hand on the back of his neck. Only it’s not his gesture anymore—it’s Catcher’s. I clench my teeth against the flood of emotions as thoughts of Catcher begin to invade the moment.

I refuse to let these men unsettle me this much. I’m stronger than that. I’ve had to be determined and independent—it’s who I am now.

I cross my arms, waiting for Elias to answer. Finally, he drops his hand from his neck, rolls his shoulders as if to ease tension. “I was scared,” he says. He shrugs and looks over at the maps covering the walls.

I’m silent, waiting for more.

“That’s the reason I left at first,” he continues. “I didn’t know how to take care of you. I’d …” He swallows and I take a step toward him. “I’d failed you before.”

“What do you mean, failed me?” I ask. He’s now just a few feet away and he glances at me. His eyes flicker along my scars. It’s so fast, such a small deviation of his gaze that I’m sure he doesn’t think I notice.

But of course I do. It’s the way people have looked at me most of my life. Usually I scowl back, but Elias knows me too well for that to work on him. I start to feel cold, my insides icy.