The tubes.
But also, the soft shape of her lips, the faint colour returning to her cheeks. The life flickering beneath her eyelids. And something shifts inside me, slow and seismic. I survived the lashings. She survived the labour.
Our son survived both.
This family, my family, is a miracle carved from brutality.
I lean forward, forehead brushing her hand, and whisper, “I’m here. I’m not leaving. Ever.”
My son stirs softly, like he heard me. A tiny, fragile confirmation. And suddenly the terror, the rage, the grief, it allthins, dissolves, breaking apart under the weight of something larger.
Hope.
A dangerous, violent hope.
I kiss her knuckles, gripping her hand, thumb stroking over the IV. “Nells,” I breathe, “you come back to me. Do you hear me? You come back.”
The door clicks.
I don’t look up. I just rock my tiny son in my arms.
When she opens her eyes, those beautiful ash brown eyes ringed in inky black, I want her to see us, both of us, waiting.
Chapter 41
PENELOPE
Irise through darkness like someone swimming up through deep water.
Slowly.
Heavily.
Reluctantly.
My body feels distant, far away from me, as if I am housed inside a shell I only half-recognise. There’s no pain, not exactly. Just a stiffness, a dull ache under everything, like bruised earth after a storm. My limbs are heavy, softened by whatever medication they gave me, as if I were forged from warm clay that hasn’t fully hardened yet.
I try to lift my fingers.
They twitch against something warm.
A hand.
Someone’s hand wrapped around mine.
I try again, pushing toward the surface of myself, and a breath escapes me, a thin, cracked whisper of air. My eyelids drag open with the stubborn weight of stone slabs.
Light spills in softly, dim and gold, like a candle cupped inside someone’s palm.
And then, him.
Billy sits beside the bed, angled toward me as if he has been trying to summon me awake with the sheer force of his presence. His hair is damp, the usually upright springy coils of deep brown are weighted down by water, little drips hitting the shoulders of his clean shirt. His warm brown skin is pale but whole. It makes my throat tighten because I know what they did to him, I watched it, and yet there is no evidence on the surface now.
Only the stiffness in his posture betrays him. Only the way he holds himself a little too carefully. His eyes snap open the instant mine do. His bright glacial blues finding my deep dark ones like the underworld demanded it. And for one impossible, aching heartbeat, he looks like he’s forgotten how to breathe.
“Penelope,” he whispers, like he’s saying a prayer, or a word he never thought he’d be able to say again.
I try to speak but the air catches in my throat. He leans closer instantly, brushing his thumb over the back of my hand. The touch is so gentle I almost break apart.
