The walls are freshly painted in a warm, buttery cream color. There’s no mold. No grime. No peeling seams where paint gave up.
It’s jarring.
By the time I reach the far wall, I spot a paper taped to a door. My name. Block letters. Sharpie. And a tiny skull doodle beside it.
I push open the door, expecting… hospital detritus. Instead, there is a freaking welcome basket. An actual basket like you’d give a new mother, except instead of diaper samples and formula, it contains a travel bottle of mouthwash, a pack of wet wipes, a hairbrush, and a pair of sweatpants. There’s a hoodie reading PROPERTY OF COUNTY MORGUE in cheerful font, plus novelty socks covered in tiny cartoon skulls. And tucked between them: a can of instant coffee with a single plastic spoon, accompanied by little sugar packs and instant creamer.
Instant creamer.
That is such a Talon signature that I don’t even need a psychic tether. He absolutely staged a coup against Nathaniel’s unholy sludge and decided this girl was not going to be subjected to it.
And it’s all new. Not scavenged. Not looted from the abandoned belongings of the recently deceased. They actually went and bought this for me.
I just stand there. One hand braced on the doorframe. Breathing.
It hits harder than I expect. Because I can see it. Them assembling it. The grump, the gremlin, and the surgeon, allconspiring in their own incompatible, insane little way. A tiny slice of care carved into reality.
I step fully in.
The room matches the hallway: warm walls, repaired blinds, carpet (actual carpet), a humming space heater like this is a place meant for the living, not a Grim Reaper.
There’s a small desk under the window. On it: folded towels, a battered but clean mug, and—
a cactus.
A cactus in a chipped terracotta pot.
There’s a sticky note stuck to it.
Don’t kill me, please.
I laugh under my breath.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
I drift to the closet next.
The closet door opens smoothly, and to my pleasure, I find that the hinges were recently oiled and inside, there’s a mix of new and “recovered” belongings stacked one upon the other.
At the very bottom of the stack is a cardboard shoebox labeled:Don’t kill us, either.
I open it cautiously.
Inside: lingerie. Ten—maybe more—full matching sets. Black lace so sheer it might as well be transparent, red satin, gold shimmer, pastel, velvet trim,polka dots. Like someone did a high-speed raid on every lingerie subgenre known to mankind.
There is no universe in which Nathaniel or Cassian picked out polka dots for me.
This was Talon, too.
A sound escapes me before I can stop it. It’s a half laugh, half… something else, caught behind my knuckles. If this is their idea of “welcome back to the land of mortality,” then…
It might genuinely be the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.
Grandmother excepted.
Definitely better than anything my university “friends” ever managed.
Better than Mark.
