She yawned. Yawned again, and the fatigue pressed down on her.
“Go ahead. Take a nap,” Cullen said. “Tot and I will hang out.”
“If you need me...” To do what exactly? If Tot was sick, how was she going to help? “I’ll walk her in an hour, let you rest.”
He winked. “I know where to find you.”
Maybe she should have argued more, insisted on a timetable where they could each get some sleep, but she was simply too depleted. With a grateful nod, she plodded down the hallway and flopped onto the bed. Never hadshe felt a more comfortable mattress, a cozier room. Sleep might not have been immediate, but it was nearly so.
A minute, or an hour, or several might have passed when a draft caressed her cheek, and her brain remarked on it while her eyes remained firmly closed. Sleep. There was nothing her body required more than that. But the fear that had been coiled in her chest since the moment she’d crashed sprang loose. She heard the stealthy tread of a man’s heavy boots.
Nico. He’d found them again.
With a shriek, she leapt from the bed, swinging.
Someone caught her, and she thrashed to get free.
“It’s me.”
Cullen.
She stopped wriggling and jerked the hair from her face. Cullen stood wide-eyed in front of her, his huge palms cradling her fists.
“Why ... why are you in here?” She gulped.
“I heard you cry out. I was worried. Came to check on you. You must have been dreaming.”
Her jaw was clenched tight. “So Nico hasn’t come back?”
He shook his head. “All buttoned up tight. You don’t need to worry.”
“Tot...”
“She’s sleeping at the moment. Super fussy, but I let her have your bear. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Is she sick?”
“Don’t think so, but our little pookie is sprouting another tooth, so probably everything is okay.”
“Okay?” She tried and failed to make that statement ring true. “The volcano’s imploding and Nico is out therestill and we experienced a limnic eruption and wrecked a bus.”
“Well, yeah, but we’re still kicking, aren’t we?”
Whatever retort she’d meant to give him dissolved in a humiliating gush of unexpected tears. “I’m tired of being tired… and scared ... and hungry and cold ... and lost.”
With a bemused look, he nodded.
She sobbed, hiccupped, cried some more. “And I’m angry that I’m crying. I don’t want to cry.”
“Understandable.”
She held up a palm. “Don’t say anything sweet to me right now or I’ll cry harder,” she said severely.
“Um, okay.” He shifted from one socked foot to the other. “How about I get you a drink of water?”
She forced breath in and out, wrestling for control. “No. That’s sweet too.”
“So I’m thinking a hug’s out?”
