Just One Touch (Slow Burn #5)(66)

When she'd eaten her fill, she pushed her plate back with a heavy sigh of contentment. "I'm stuffed," she groaned. "And I need to make another trip to the bathroom."

Isaac took her plate and dropped a kiss on her upturned lips. "Hurry back to me."

She smiled and walked out of the kitchen toward the bedroom she and Isaac had occupied.



       
         
       
        

Isaac was rinsing the dishes when Shadow called to him from the doorway dividing the kitchen and living room.

"You need to see this, brother," he said in a low voice, sliding his eyes in the direction Jenna had disappeared in a silent message that it was something she didn't need to see.

But Jenna walked in at just the moment Shadow spoke and saw the look sent in her direction. Shadow's lips thinned, and it was obvious he was cursing under his breath. He sent Isaac a look of apology.

"What is it?" Jenna asked sharply, fear replacing her earlier sparkle and laughter.

Isaac cursed at the sudden change.

"You can't shield me from everything," Jenna said softly.

"The hell I can't!" he bellowed.

A look of defiance sparked in her eyes. "Whatever it is can't hurt me. We're here and they're somewhere else. Watching something on a television can't hurt anyone. Only people can hurt people and they have to be captured in order to be hurt. I get that I'm dumb and ignorant and hopelessly naïve, but how can I ever expect to learn the things I need to know if you are all determined to keep me locked away where I don't see anything disturbing? I need to know what's going on. The only time I'm afraid is when I don't know what's happening," she said in a pleading voice.

"You are not dumb and ignorant and you are not naïve, and I won't put up with you constantly putting yourself down or convincing yourself that you're less than everyone else. That you're nobody and nobody cares for you," he said fiercely.

"Damn it, Jenna, you've been isolated from the world since you were four years old. No one would expect you to learn everything in a few days, which is why we're protecting you and helping you gain the knowledge you need, but you have to be willing to let us do our job and listen when we tell you what you need to do in order to be able to protect yourself as well."

"We have a few minutes," Shadow said calmly. "There's a commercial break right now and when the newscast returns they're going with the lead story." He leveled his stare at Jenna, giving her a chin lift in respect. "It's your decision. Just make it quick."

Even though he knew Shadow was right and that Isaac couldn't continue to treat her like she would fall apart at any sign of adversity, it still pissed him off that he couldn't shield her from pain and anguish, and he knew it showed in his expression and tense body language.

Jenna's expression became troubled and she frowned. Her lips trembled and it was obvious she was fighting back tears. Fuck. He hadn't meant to upset her or hurt her feelings, but he was at a complete loss as to how to convince her that she was far from nothing. That she was important, and that she was everything to him. She was the reason he breathed, that he got up in the morning and for the first time since she'd stolen his heart and made it her own forever, didn't simply go through the motions of the day. Instead he savored every single moment with her, allowing himself something he'd never dreamed of being capable of having. Hope. Excitement for the future. Spending the rest of his life killing himself just so she'd keep smiling and be happy. For too long his life had been consumed by shadows and darkness, concealed places he didn't dare delve into for fear of unleashing painful memories and allowing all the mistakes he'd made to pour out. Because once he did, there was no going back. He would have had to walk away from everything he knew and the people who'd embraced him as family because he wouldn't have been able to look them in the eye and pretend that everything was all right. Perfect. Just another day like all the others. 

It had taken him months to quit the bottle and sober up and then another year to work his body back into shape, eat the right foods or even eat at all. That had enabled him to do his job because he had become very adept at being aloof and unaffected, concealing his emotions and keeping any telling information from his face. But however good he'd gotten at fooling not just others but himself as well when he was on the job, the nights were an altogether different matter.

It was then, in unguarded, vulnerable moments, that the nightmares crept in, searching for the slightest crack in the barriers of his mind so they could pour insidiously into his dreams, smug and victorious, always making him feel like a shell of a person. A fraud, because he spent his days pretending and his nights reliving events that had broken him in a way that had taken him a very long time to recover from. And he still hadn't managed to piece himself back together completely. He knew because he still had nightmares that jerked him up in bed, sweat soaking his skin from head to toe and his heart pounding so furiously that at times he feared he was having a heart attack. They just weren't as frequent as they had been.