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sounds of him starting a fire.
    Then
I remembered. My backpack. Alarm zapped through me like electricity.
He wanted to know why I was here. He might look. I didn’t want
him to. I couldn’t talk about it. I just couldn’t. In my
panicked state, I jumped out of the chair, totally forgetting about
my ankle. It buckled under me, and I crashed to the floor with a cry
and a moan.
    Dakota
rushed into the kitchen, his eyes wild, his breathing harsh. He
backed away from me as if I was some kind of threat. He closed his
eyes, moaning. His back hit the wall hard and he slid down the
length, covering both ears with this hands. The gut-wrenching sounds
that ripped out of him stunned me.
    What
was wrong with him? I crawled closer, unable to bear his distress. He
pulled at his arm as if it was immobile and screamed obscenities.
Then a name.
    “Elsa!”
    It
seemed as if he was somewhere else. The look in his eyes: stark
terror, pain so deep it twisted my heart, and a wrenching
helplessness that only made me want to soothe him.

Chapter Three
    Alissa

    Wanting
to help somehow, I touched his forearm, but he jerked away from me,
his eyes desolate. I grabbed onto him anyway, compassion making my
throat tight. I scooted close to him, and simply wrapped my arms
around him, murmuring, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
    Awash
with a whole storm of emotion, my heart constricted when he uttered a
broken cry and I tightened my hold convulsively when he tried to
break it. A tremor coursed through him, and he buried his face
against my neck, his hand spanning my head, his breath hot against my
skin. With a deep, shuddering sigh, he settled his weight against me.
Tenderness stole through me as I held him. “I’ve got
you,” I said softly into the silence as his breathing quieted.
“You’re safe.”
    Charlie
used to say those words when I was upset, and they always made me
feel better.
    He
shook his head as if disagreeing with me. He pushed at me, but I
didn’t want to let him go. This must be some kind of a
flashback. Had he been in the military? In the war?
    Who
was Elsa?
    He
pushed me away and I reluctantly let my arms drop.
    He
got to his knees and knelt there, his head hanging for a moment. Then
he looked up, searching the room with a quick sweep. He saw me,
seemed to register that I was still there and safe, and then with a
weary heave sank back against the wall. His breathing was harsh and
labored as he struggled with the aftereffects of his personal battle.
    Something
I understood all too well.
    I’d
held Charlie plenty of times when he was in a lot of pain. Held him
when he was distraught and lost in fear.
    “What’s
with Winnie the Pooh?” he asked, not looking at me. “Aren’t
you a little too old for that?”
    Talking
would probably help, so I complied. “I have a friend whose name
is Charlie. We lived next door to each other our whole lives, so he’s
been my friend ever since we were born. He was born with cystic
fibrosis, so he’s been sick forever. We used to read Winnie the
Pooh books together and he’d say I was like Pooh Bear, all
sunshine and compliance, and he was Piglet, always fearful. When I
was ten, he gave me that backpack for my birthday.”
    Dakota
lifted his head, his face ashen and carved by strain, his eyes
shadowed by some emotion I could only guess at, and my heart twisted
seeing his agony. I wanted to ask him what had happened to him…but
I barely knew him, and it seemed so personal.
    He
pushed off the floor and, with a powerful move, picked me up. He was
so warm, so hard and male.
    “I
wouldn’t have touched it,” he said and settled me back
into my chair, but I couldn’t force myself to let go of him. It
was totally a response to his intense outburst, the fear and horror
on his face. I wanted to comfort him, simply as one flawed human
being to another. For a moment, he lingered there, his face close to
mine, and I could see the sunburst of gunmetal gray that rimmed his
pupil. His mouth hovered a