So no matter how strongly the question is burning on my tongue, no matter the gaze I sear into his satchel, I don’t ask about the one possession I want in my bag.
The CB radio.
He can keep the fucking inhaler, I don’t care, I just want that radio back in my hands, in my bag, in my control.
I don’t even know if I’ll reach Bee on the other side, if she’s still there, or she’s even still alive.
Part of me doesn’t want to find out.
The warrior packs my bag neater than I ever have, and just as he lures the zip closed, glass glints at me from the fire.
The female warrior is awake.
Huddled, facing the steam, her gaze is piercing into the warrior at my side, the faintest etching of a frown on her brow—then she flicks her stare to me.
I turn my cheek to her.
The cold one kicks my bag aside before reaching for his own. He tugs out a leather-bound book of sorts.
Does this monster never sleep?
The other fae seem to rest more than he does.
And even though I spent all that time in a fever dream on the cart, however long it was, I’m still just so fucking tired that I don’t fight it for long—I fall asleep way too quickly for a human among beasts.
x
Mum’s voice carried through the whole flat.
It always did—the walls were so thin, and she could have been right there next to me, shouting down the receiver.
Slumped on the foot of my bed, I reached out my foot, wrapped with a slouched bed sock, and nudged the door open.
The old hinges creaked, but Mum didn’t hear it, not over her own fraught voice. It was that kind of shout she always tried to keep low—and failed, every time.
The glare of the ceiling light bore down on her.
She was at the window again, trying to shove it closed, but it always got stuck at the edge. It left a gap in the frame, a wedge for the draught to get into the flat—and it did.
It got in all winter.
The chill was constant.
I was wrapped in flannel, doubled up with a dressing gown, and the slouched socks on my feet were wool.
But that didn’t stop the breath at my face from fogging, or the glass of water on my bedside from misting.
Mum gave up on the window with a curse, then turned her full, snarling attention on the phone receiver pinned between her ear and her shoulder.
“Do you think it’s cheap raising a kid?” she snapped.
She kicked away from the window.
The flimsy slippers she’d got on a clearance sale slapped with her storming steps out of my line of sight—and I heard tiles hardening the slaps, so I guessed she’d gone to the kitchen.
“It takes more than a few hundred pounds in child support a year. She goes through that in food alone, Dave.”
The familiar beeping of the microwave followed—reheating her tea for the second time.
