She sounds like she means it. And I watch her closely.
“If you hurt them,” I say finally, “I will destroy you.”
She stiffens. “Your social skills could use some work, you know that? And I have no plans to hurt them.”
“I mean it.” I stare down at her. She swallows, but she meets my eyes.
And the faintest thread of respect works its way into my chest when she nods. “Warning received.”
I shift. I’ve said my piece. She’s had her warning. I can leave now.
But I don’t actually move. My fingers tap restlessly against the floor, my eyes flicking down.
“Tell me about you.”
As she begins to speak, I realize that I like the sound of her voice. And I don’t like many people. Too shrill. Too much. But Anastasia –Stasi, she reminds me – her voice is husky. Soothing.
She tells me about her childhood. About her father, and his travels. How he’d bring her back a book from every place he went, until one day he didn’t come back at all. Her voice begins to shake, and I quickly change tack.
“You enjoy reading?” I ask her. My voice is a little softer this time, and she grasps onto the change in subject even as hereyes flick to mine in awareness, a silent communication that she knows what I’m doing.
“I do. I prefer to write, though.”
My eyebrows raise in interest. “What do you write?”
She flushes. “Anything. Everything. Poetry. Fiction. I… that’s what I want to study, when I’m old enough. At college. It sounds stupid, I know.”
“Nothing sounds stupid with enough conviction behind it,” I say and she laughs, leaning against me. “True.”
“I would like to read something you’ve written.” She doesn’t strike me as someone who would waste her words on frivolity. I wonder if her directness bleeds into her writing. What more it will tell me about this girl.
“Maybe I’ll show you. You have to promise not to laugh, though.”
Time ticks away. We talk for hours, until the twins find us tucked away in the corner of the hall. Even then, I find that I’m reluctant to stop, reluctant to give up the time that I’ve spent listening to her. Even for them as they tease her away from me with promises of an afternoon picnic by the stream.
She turns to me before she leaves. Hesitation lingers in her brown eyes as they scan my face. “Same… same time tomorrow?”
My eyes jerk to hers.
Slowly, I nod.
And somehow, over the weeks and months we spend in quiet corners, talking and laughing and sharing our fucking souls, Anastasia works her way into my heart, right alongside the twins.
And then she rips it apart, from the inside out.
16 – Stasi
Ihate them.
I hate them all. Silas. Rafe. Even Kit, for being fuckingrelatedto them.
And Clara. I fuckingdetesther.
At this point, the hate is all that’s keeping me upright.
I jerk my head out of the hearth. I’m covered in dirt from head to toe trying to clean it out, and I stare down at the pile of washing that’s just thumped down next to me. “Machine’s right over there, Clara.”
“Oh,” she purrs. “But Silas specifically said thatyouwere to do it.”
