Maybe the bond affects me differently because I’m not a shifter? Maybe it’s residual empathy? Maybe… maybe I need to research interspecies bonding—
“Hey, J.” Kacey’s soft voice filters under the door, halting my furious typing. “I’ve just finished baking some lemon cake, with my new and hopefully improved recipe. Fancy some?”
Her forced excitement only makes her desperation worse. She hasn’t checked on me in—my gaze darts to the time on my screen—three hours.
A record.
I release a long breath, leaning back in the squeaky desk chair, twisting my wrists and flexing my tight fingers. If only it were just my hands that ached instead of my entire body.
Probably didn’t help that I haven’t been sleeping properly, at all really, because I can’t stay asleep.
The nightmares were well and truly back.
Thankfully, waking up in a cold sweat, surrounded by swathes of black tendrils and Kacey’s wide, terrified eyes, was enough to trigger her innate need to fill any awkward silence.
Her mostly incoherent rambling included something about a plant that, once liquified, could sedate distressed animals.
A plant, one of the many, she happened to keep in her bedroom.
After much trial and error, to Kacey’s absolute horror, we learnt it worked on me. A couple of sips made me drowsy, several more and it knocked me out cold.
For nearly four hours.
You can imagine how Kacey reacted the first time that happened. I’d already told her,“If I’m still breathing, I’m fine. Don’t panic.”
I woke to her sobbing, phone in hand, seconds away from calling someone. I barely talked her down, swearing I wouldn’t take it again. But that was the only way I could sleep without waking in terror.
So, I took it again. Just once. She doesn’t know. And that was... how many days ago? Three?
I hadn’t slept in three days. I think.
And it wasn’t just the lack of sleep causing the aches, I hadn’t been eating either. Although Kacey tried, I just didn’t have the appetite.
Then there was the other ache, the one I had been too afraid to describe, let alone focus on for too long. It still gnaws at me, constant and unforgiving, keeping me tense during the day and in pain most nights, lying there as I stared up at the ceiling.
No amount of shifting or twisting can ease it. It just stays.
“J, is everything okay in there?” I hear her shuffle closer to the door. “I promise I haven’t burnt this one. I’ve actually really tried. I double—no, triple checked all the measurements. I mean, thanks to you, now I know the difference between ateaspoon andtablespoon! So I really think I’ve—
I open the door mid-speech. She startles, jumps back slightly, and I instantly feel bad. I’ve tried not to take anything out on Kacey, but it’s so difficult being an empath and staying with someone who constantly feels on edge.
Walking on eggshells doesn’t begin to cover it. More like tiptoeing across shattered ones whilst trying to salvage whatever pieces are still intact.
But this is Kacey’s coping mechanism: the baking, the hovering, the endless chatter.
While I’ve curled inwards, she’s done the exact opposite.
So she bakes, and I research.
“I mean this in the nicest way possible, so please don’t do that scary stare thing,” Kacey says, her gaze flickering all over my face.
I narrow my brows and stare at her, and the way her breath catches tells me I did exactly what she asked me not to do. I quickly stifle my expression.
“But you look...awful, J.” I also try not to flinch at the new nickname she’s given me, one she started using on the second day.
‘J and K,’she calls us. Sometimes, she makes little rhymes.
I have to keep reminding myself that Iwas the one who asked her to be my friend first.
