Avenged(6)

“You hanging in there, Snow White?” I was huffing and puffing, partly because the cold was bitter and sharp. It hurt to breathe. I was also not used to hiking through the snow with a load. Every few steps I had to fight to keep my balance so that I didn’t drop the woman on her delightfully rounded backside. Back in the city, I was the guy that gave the orders to the younger guys who did the dirty work. I clearly needed to hit a gym and start running a few miles if I was going to get back to my previous fighting form. New me needed to get his ass back in shape.

“Echo.”

The word was mumbled and slurred, so I wasn’t sure what she was saying. I frowned down at her and tightened my hold as I ducked to avoid a low-hanging limb. “You’re hearing an echo? You did hit your head pretty hard.” All I could hear was my own labored breathing, her occasional whimpering, and the rustle of the wildlife we disturbed.

She made a noise and those obscenely long lashes of hers blinked away the snowflakes that were clinging to the tips. “No, my name is Echo, not Snow White.”

I lifted an eyebrow and let out a low grunt. “Echo? That’s different. Is it your real name?” I was used to strippers named Honor and hookers named Roxie, so I knew it was possible for her to go by something else if there was a role she was playing in her life. I was used to everyone having two faces and multiple personalities. Where I was from, you were whoever you had to be in order to survive.

She groaned again and her eyes closed. “You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve had to show my driver’s license to prove it’s my real name. My parents had a flair for the unusual. My little sister was Xanthe and my little brother is Horatio.”

Those were uncommon, but what caught my ear was the was when she mentioned her sister. I was good at hearing the things people didn’t say. It had kept me alive for a long time in a place that ate the weak for breakfast.

“Your sister pass away? You said she was Xanthe.” I swore as my boots slipped on the snow and as the leather strap attached to the shotgun dug into my shoulder. I’d been lying on a prison infirmary gurney less than five months ago, losing most of my blood. I still didn’t have my full strength back and this trek was taking more out of me than I wanted to admit. I was going to be lucky if I got us both back to the cabin in one piece.

“She died.” Her voice was quiet and I could tell the pain laced throughout it had nothing to do with the physical pain she was in from the accident. “Just a few days ago actually.” It was still fresh. No wonder she sounded like she was going to start sobbing. “What’s your name?”

The question was clearly a way to change the subject and return the focus to me, but that was a question I really didn’t want to answer. I looked down at her and saw that she had sharp lines dug into the center of her forehead and along the edges of her mouth. I kind of hoped she passed back out. It was much easier being the new me when she was unconscious.

I blew out a breath and watched the cloud form in the air in front of me. Fuck, it was cold. My ears were starting to sting and I couldn’t remember when I’d last felt the tip of my nose.

“The folks around here call me Ben.” It was actually a shortened version of my name, but ever since I could walk I’d been a Benny. Dropping the last part was hard but not as hard as convincing the Marshals that I wasn’t going to be Carl or Steve when they relocated me. They wanted me to be a different person...and I understood why. But my name was the only thing I had left from my old life and I refused to let it go entirely.

She squinted up at me and then moaned and lifted a hand to her forehead. As she moved I had to adjust my hold on her. I swore again as she started wiggling and grunted when my palm grazed the side of her breast under the thick fabric of my coat. She was stacked, rounded in all the right places and my new resolve to not be an asshole couldn’t beat back the fact that I had always been a boob man. She was working with all my favorite attributes and it was classic old me to notice that while she was bleeding all over both of us.

“What flavor of Ben are you? A Benjie, a Benjamin, or maybe a Bernard?” Her voice was getting thready and weak but I could smell smoke from the fire I had started at the cabin earlier in the evening. I sent up some silent thanks that we were both going to be under a roof and warm soon.

I shook my head, which sent snow flying in every direction, and felt my lips twitch, which made my beard move. I always preferred polished to rugged, but the way women eye-fucked me on the regular with the face fuzz made me wonder if I had been missing out on a surefire way to get laid all these years. I liked women…a lot. In fact, that had been one of my biggest complaints about getting dropped in no-man’s-land. The pickings were slim, unless I wanted to keep my options limited to tourists and weekend warriors. I didn’t mind the hit-it-and-quit-it type of woman; that’s what I tended to gravitate toward. However, now that I was working out how to be the new me, I figured the way I went about spending time with the opposite sex needed to change as well. I needed to be the kind of guy that deserved a woman’s attention for more reasons than the fact I had a pretty face, prettier words, and was blessed with a big dick that I knew how to use.