Once his fingers were bandaged and his lip was smeared with ointment, I dropped the towel in the sink and palmed his waist. I moved to lift him off the sink, but he stopped me with a meek sound and a hand over mine. Sebastian guided my fingers to the hem of his shirt, and he winced as we lifted it together.
Fucking hell.
“Did someone hit you?”
His stomach matched his knuckles, skin stained with splotches of blue and purple. Bending at the waist, I inspected the injury and pondered over whether he needed a visit to the hospital. His ribs seemed to be okay, but the way he winced told me he was in a lot of pain.
He reached for the bruise. I quickly grabbed his finger. “Don’t touch, baby. We’ll get you some ice just as soon as we get out of here.”
His nose bumped mine, and he wiggled his finger aggressively before I finally released it.
He was trying to show me something…
Sebastian’s finger circled a section of his wound. Eyes thin, I tried to find the secret he was sharing with me. It took me a moment, longer than it should have, but I finally saw them.
Symbols.
There were faded, barely there engravings pressed into the soft parts of his skin. I recognized Ridgemont’s logo and the intricate designs as the ones his father wore on his rings.
“Your father hurts you?”
Sebastian didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. The evidence was in that medicine cabinet, on the floor of his bedroom, painted across his pale skin…
Sebastian’s wings weren’t broken, they were chained behind his back. He had more scars than friends—was scared more often than he was at peace.
That ended now.
I lifted him off the counter. “You can’t stay here. Can you pack a bag? Maybe two? Bring everything that means something to you.”
He spun on his heels and took off into his bedroom. His movements were slow, but they were purposeful as he swept articles of clothing off the floor and stuffed them into an old duffel bag.
“He trashed your room.”
Sebastian made glasses with his hands and moved his head from side to side.
“He was looking for something?”
He nodded, and then lifted his shoulders in a gesture that told me he had no fucking clue what his father wanted.
“Should’ve punched him in the face.”
I was going to do more than realign his jaw.
The zipper on his bag made a noise when he sealed it. He dropped it at his feet with a thud and secured his backpack over his shoulders. Rushing around his bed, he pointed at it and made a shoving motion.
“You want me to move your bed, babe?”
He nodded and batted his sweet lashes at me.
I fucking kissed him.
Palms to the bed, I gave the frame an easy push. It made a grinding noise as it slid across the floor, and Sebastian dropped to his knees. Lifting his small fist, he slammed it into the ground hard enough that a floorboard popped loose and he tugged it out of place.
Flat on his stomach, he stuffed his arm into the hole he’d created and reemerged with a shoebox. He set it at my feet and opened the lid, showing me what he had inside.
A wad of cash lay rolled up in the corner, beside a photo of a woman I assumed was his mother. There was a list of out-of-state colleges, an old map, his birth certificate, the bus schedule, and a stack of information on how to legally change his name.
It was his security net—a runaway package, and oh it broke my damn heart.