Shadow WIngs (Skeleton Key) by Skeleton Key, JC Andrijeski Page A

Ilana.”
    She glanced up, expecting humor, but his eyes remained crystal-still.
    “And why would I do that?” she said, grunting.
    She avoided his eyes as she said it, however.
    As for him, he didn’t answer, not even with a shrug. He continued to watch her face instead, that intense scrutiny verging on unnerving now.
    Ilana ended up being the one who looked away that time, too.
    “Or perhaps that is not my priority, regardless,” he added, softer.
    Sighing in frustration, she shook her head, pushing her long hair over one shoulder. “At this rate, I am thinking I would not have to tell them anything about you,” she muttered. “You seem to have no problem sharing this information freely on your own. Have you totally forgotten what country we live in, comrade?” She looked up, verging on annoyed now for some reason. “I found you in a jail cell. Why on earth should I think you would not simply return to another jail cell on your own, regardless of what I did or did not do?”
    When she met his gaze that time, he smiled faintly.
    Enough that she knew he had read her meaning, even before he spoke.
    “Thank you, Ilana,” he said.
    “Do not thank me yet,” she warned.
    He only smiled wider, however.
    Ilana exhaled again in frustration when she realized maybe he was right. He didn’t really have to worry––not about her, at least. She intended to do her best to make sure he didn’t end up in a place like that. But to do so, she would be breaking the rules.
    Granted, she had much more latitude to break those rules than most, but she wasn’t totally immune to them, either. And since there was absolutely no way he could know she would be willing to break these rules for him, his disinterest in his own fate made her wonder about him all over again. Who the hell was this man, really? How did he know so much?
    Why Golunsky?
    “The birthmark, comrade?” she said, even as she thought it. “How did you come to know me so well? I do not remember making your acquaintance before.”
    Even as the words left her lips, she wondered why she hadn’t thought to ask that question before. Really, it should have been the first thing out of her lips when they’d met on either side of those iron bars. It definitely should have come up before now––and definitely before she brought him into her home and gave him a clean towel and new clothes to wear.
    He could be stalking her. Or hell, he really could be working for Uri.
    But she didn’t believe either of those things, which only frustrated her more.
    She had zero reasons to trust him, yet she did. She had zero reasons to keep him here with her, yet she already knew she wanted to. More than wanted to––she’d already more than half-decided to do it. He intrigued her, but he also struck her as an inherently trustworthy person, and the second part frightened her much more than the first.
    She couldn’t defend any of those beliefs or decisions logically, yet they felt absolutely right and true. Something about the simplicity of that unnerved her... perhaps because it was so utterly foreign to her. Living in the Soviet Union made everyone paranoid. It was just one of those truths no one bothered to comment on, other than in jest.
    They had not been raised in an environment where trust was rewarded.
    Despite that, she could not make herself believe that he might hurt her. She could not make herself believe he would ever cause an innocent person deliberate harm. She knew that, without having any possible way of knowing it. He would never harm anyone unless it was for the greater good, no matter what they did to him.
    He really did feel like some kind of protector, or guardian.
    Worse, she already felt responsible for him.
    “How do you know my body, comrade?” she said, her voice more pointed.
    “I saw it. As an angel.”
    “Your duties in catching Golunsky required you to see me naked?”
    She saw a faint tension develop between his eyebrows. From his face, she wondered