Frustration twists her face until she bursts out, “How’m I meant to communicate, then?”
Her voice is so ragged it cracks halfway through, the rest of the sentence gaining clarity more through lipreading than sound.
“I don’t care what you have to say,” I tell her in the kindest voice I can manage. A hard feat since my chest feels like it’s being squeezed between two giant hands.
I squat to the side of her chair, cradling her head in one hand and pressing my lips near her ear. When I try to finish my thought, I have to pause a second.
My pulse is beating hard, thumping in my head. My lips tremble and I force my voice out when my throat clutches. “You just tried to kill my favourite person in all the world, so you don’t get to speak. You don’t get a vote. You don’t get to express an opinion. Not any longer. Not until I’m sure you won’t try to hurt her again.”
She bows her head and I pull her into an awkward hug, pressing my cheek against her wet hair.
Then I turn to making us both something to eat.
The chicken noodle soup would be better served with large slices of fresh bread, but I have to make do with crackers. Em shakes so much that I leave her cuffed and feed the bowl to her in tiny spoonfuls, blowing on them to ensure they won’t burn her mouth.
“D’you want any more?”
She shakes her head, frowning at the resulting pain. I release her from the chair while leaving the cuffs on her wrists. I refasten them to the bedpost, then slip her feet underneath the covers.
“Are you warm enough?”
She nods, eyes watching me as I finish my portion of the meal, then quickly wash the dishes in the sink, leaving them stacked in the draining tray after.
“Caylon, you have to let me go.”
I strip off my jeans before getting into bed next to her. There’s a television on a chair at the end of the bed but I don’t turn it on, even if the sound would be more reassuring than listening to Em’s jagged breathing.
I cuddle next to her, wrapping my arms around her thin body. Even cocooned in the giant cardigan and under the covers she still manages to feel cold.
My mind bumps up against the image of her from earlier in the night, then shies away from it just as quickly. I can’t think about that. I can’t think of how close I came to losing her.
Instead, I turn her face towards mine, staring at her in wonder.
It’s hard to believe that she’s here, next to me, lying in my bed. Lying where I can touch her, comfort her, talk to her, love her.
I feel like it’s all I’ve dreamt of for years.
“You don’t understand—”
I put a hand over her mouth, sitting up on my elbow so I can read her expressions. “No talking.”
Even with it in place, I make sure it’s not touching against her skin, not preventing her breathing. Logically, I know that it’s not suffocation that led to her losing consciousness, more the constriction of her veins and arteries, but I still can’t bear to think of her struggling to breathe because of me.
Luckily, she quietens. Her eyes stayed fixed on me, not even trying to close in the pretence of chasing sleep.
My thumb follows the path of her lower lip, tracing the outline, brushing against the underside. There are patches of redness on her cheeks, her eyelids, even the whites of her eyes, where capillaries have burst, releasing their small bounties of blood into the surrounding flesh.
I let my fingertips touch against the areas of faint bruising, then drop to her throat, running my knuckle underneath the ligature mark. Half of it has faded to nothing but on the right side where it rested under her jaw, the discolouration is maturing into bruising.
The touch isn’t enough. Supporting my weight on one elbow, I duck my head to kiss along the marks, from the rope, from her scrabbling fingers. I suck at the curve of her collarbone where there’s a nasty graze. It looks like she scraped it against the tree.
My free hand leaves the side of her neck and opens the cardigan, delving beneath the hem of the t-shirt, running up her protruding ribs until I’m cupping her breast, feeling the nipple harden underneath my palm.
“Cay—”
I press my mouth to hers to stop the word. To stop any words as I pinch her erect nipple between my thumb and forefinger, feeling her moan as a vibration through my lips.
This is wrong. A thousand voices scream at me to do the right thing. Take her to hospital. Get her into professional care. Let someone properly trained tend to her.
