Beside him, she breathed slowly, her face turned to his shoulder on the pillow. She was asleep when he came. He envied her calm, and hated that he envied it.
Rain tapped at the shutters, and the first clap of thunder rolled across the hills. His jaw clenched, and he tried to match her breaths. In for a count, out for a count.
It did nothing.
Another thunderclap pressed on the floor and on his skin. His hand twitched toward a weapon that was not there.
The bed felt like a trap.
The room felt too small.
A bolt of lightning split the night, and his body moved before his mind could catch up. His fists clenched, and his breath stuttered in his chest. He braced for boots, and the scrape of metal, and the slam of a torch against a wall.
“Neil.” Kristen’s voice was soft. “Neil, are ye awake?”
He forced air out. “Aye.”
Her hair brushed his shoulder as she pushed up onto her elbow. She found his hands in the dark, her fingers stroking his fists. “Let me see.”
“They always made noise.” The words sounded rough and strange in his mouth. “Loud. On purpose. Every crash meant they were coming. Sometimes for a fight. Sometimes for worse.”
He swallowed, tasting smoke on his tongue even though the room smelled of soap. He could still remember what followed every time he heard the noise.
It was intentional, the noise those guards made. They did it to announce their presence. To make sure he knew what was coming. The torture. The pain. The vague certainty that he had failed his brother. His wife.
Even now, the thought still rang hard and true in his mind.
There was nowhere to run if I was to keep them safe.
Her thumb traced his knuckles, slow and steady, almost like she was reading his mind. “Yer mind kens ye’re nay longer in captivity, but yer body doesnae. We have to help it realize that.” She eased one finger free, then another. “Breathe with me.”
He tried. In and out.
Her warm palm settled on his fist until the ache dulled and the bones felt like his own again. Thunder rolled, and he flinched again, although less than before. She stayed close.
“Talk to me,” she coaxed. “About anything other than the cabin.”
“I cannae.”
“Ye can. Just tell me what comes to mind.”
“Nay, ye daenae understand. There is nothing in me head.”
A brief silence, punctuated by the gentle tapping of the rain against shutters, ensued.
“Then I will talk,” she said, eventually. “Ye can just listen to me voice. How about that?”
He nodded once, but her hand did not leave his.
“Let me tell ye a story.”
He looked up at her, his eyes narrowed. “A story about what?”
A smile touched her lips, but she did not answer.
“Two months before the bairns came,” she began, her voice low and even, “a woman reached our gate in tears. Her husband meant to drag their daughter across the sea to Prussia. The wee lass was clinging to her, screaming.”
He turned his head on the pillow so he could hear each word.
