Was this healing?
The realizations that I wasn’t doing it alone? Was that what healing was?
I still felt that darkness in my soul.
I still felt the monster growling against my bones.
I still didn’t feel safe.
But at least I was tethered.
At least I had a giraffe named Rover to join me for breakfast this morning.
Evelyn and Emily were both gone this morning, although my phone was filled with texts from both, assuring me they’d come over soon.
I couldn’t believe they were still wanting to come over. Didn’t they have jobs? A publishing company to run and people to kill? I thought Evelyn had to remain with Everett so he didn’t go full maniac. So, if she was here, did that mean he was out there somewhere, slaughtering and maiming without a tether of his own to hold him down?
I felt a thread of guilt grow in my gut. I needed to tell Evelyn to join him. To make sure he wasn’t losing it just because I was lost in my own mind. I had my tether now, she needed to go be his.
I had the television on loud, and I had positioned myself to be able to stare out the window, Rover sitting across from me, Lucy beside me, and Merlin in front of my bowl of cereal, as I ate at the table.
Still too silent, but better than nothing.
I wasn’t alone here.
I chewed slowly as I watched Merlin eat one of the puffs I had given him. “I want to rearrange everything,” I told him quietly. My voice was no longer raspy, but it still didn’t sound like my own. “I want to redecorate, change everything. What do you think? I need something to match what I am now, right? Something not so…” I glanced towards the living room, takingin the dark blue walls and the patterned gray rug. “Blue.” It had been something I had been thinking about since the day I came back. Today, I was finally feeling like I was getting my energy back, so maybe I would go to the store and pick out some things.
Or maybe I would get online and order some things. Yeah, that sounded like a better idea.
Merlin paused and looked up, squeaking once.
Lucy’s ears perked.
I almost felt myself smile, but it wasn’t quite strong enough to get there.
“Maybe—” but my words were cut off when the door opened.
My heart skipped a beat, and I leaned back in my chair, immediately looking at Lucy, every muscle in my body tight.
Her ears folded back, her nostrils flaring, the snarl already on her lips, only to pause a moment later. She sniffed the air and her ears perked, her own body relaxing.
My eyes lifted to the kitchen doorway, and a second later, Everett walked around the corner.
My eyes widened. Fuck.
I swallowed and looked down at my cereal. I hadn’t prepared for this. I hadn’t focused enough, I hadn’t breathed. What if I still couldn’t talk to him? What if the monster broke out? What if all he saw was what those men did to me and nothing else? I couldn’t change that. I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t fix anything, all I could do was fuck everything up and not talk and not breathe and not—
“Hello, pup.”
The words silenced everything.
I worked my jaw, stirring the cereal, suddenly not hungry. He was here. Weeks of not seeing him, of not hearing him, and he was finally here. Finally deigning my life in his arrogant light.
“I’m taking you out today,” he told me, pulling my eyes up tohis.
Icy blue and chilling, unwavering, just like they always were.
“We’re hunting down someone in the city,” he explained. “A debt that this person refuses to pay. We’re going to take care of it. So, get dressed.”
