They sighed again. “I just… I’ve been having, uh, nightmares lately, but this one was… bad.”
“I haven’t heard you wake up or anything while we were away. Were you having nightmares then too?”
“I… I always have them.”
The way they said it, so matter-of-factly, broke my heart, but I didn’t want them to think I was pitying them or anything like that. So instead of saying something like,Oh, baby, I’m so sorry, I kissed their hair and squeezed them tighter.
“Sometimes they’re a mixture of memories and just random shit, but the memories tonight were… vivid.”
“Do you mind if I ask what happened?”
They blew out a breath. “I… don’t really want to talk about it, but I think… I think that maybe I should? Or at least some of it. Back in my community—in the cult—I, um, well, the grand master made matches. He would pick two teenagers, decide they were meant to be together, tell their parents, and then set them up. The pair would have to date and do other random shit together… whatever the grand master wanted. After a few years, he’d make their union official.”
I definitely didn’t like where this was going.
“When I was sixteen, he set me up with this girl—Coral. She was, well, back then, I didn’t really have any friends because no one wanted to be friends with the weird dragon kid, especially after I told everyone I was nonbinary. Most of the community didn’t even know what that was, and no one cared, no one listened, no one tried. Not even Mom. But Coral… she did. Master Gremyar put us together, and I was terrified at first and so upset. I didn’t want…” They swallowed thickly. “Anyway, we had to spend time together, and she became my… my best friend.
“She loved to read, like me, and we just… got along. But Master Gremyar decided to do our union way sooner than he had with anyone else. Of course, my mother was all for it. She didn’t want the responsibility of taking care of me anymore—not that she ever really had. But this meant she could officially just push me off onto someone else, make me Coral’s problem so she could wash her hands of me.”
They fell silent for a bit, so I rubbed their back and kissed their forehead, letting my lips linger there as I did my best to be the rock Oakley needed right now.
Eventually, they continued, “By then, Coral and I were best friends. She was the only person I could really talk to there, the only one who treated me with respect, with kindness. But as much as we got along, we weren’t in love and never would be. So we devised a plan. We were going to steal her younger siblings away and run away together, go somewhere far, far away, maybe across the ocean, where they could never find us.
“The night we were supposed to leave, I went out to our meeting spot, this picnic table at a playground, but she wasn’t there. I figured she was running late, especially since she had to get the little ones, so I waited. I was actually debating going back and finding them. I figured she got held up or was having trouble getting away from her parents, and if I said I wanted to spendsome time with her and the kids, they might let us go, even though it was late.
“Anyway, my mother showed up, and I could tell from the look in her eyes that she knew about our plan, which could mean only one thing. Coral had been caught and forced to talk. I tried to make a run for it, but my mother wasn’t stupid. She’d brought a few of the blood witches with her. They knocked me out before I even had a chance to fight back.
“When I…” They sucked in a shaky breath. “When I came to, I… I was naked and chained to a wall in the ceremony cave. My skin was already covered in runes drawn with blood. They burned so badly they had already left open wounds in their shape. They were draining me, my energy, my magic, and they held me immobile. The chains were only a backup plan because the spells kept my arms, legs, and body still. But… but the worst thing was…” I felt hot tears running down my chest. “They had… they had Coral strapped to the ceremony table in the center of the cave. She was naked and bleeding from so many knife wounds. She had runes drawn on her too, and I started dry heaving when I realized it was her blood I was covered in.
“They did… they did unimaginable things to her while making me watch. They abused her in every possible way, until she was little more than a husk of a body. I begged them to stop. I begged them to take it out on me, but they wouldn’t leave her alone, not until they’d opened her up while keeping her alive with magic and started harvesting her organs. They used her as a blood sacrifice and saved her… parts for…
“I… it was the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
They shuddered, hot tears staining my shirt. I wanted to rage and set fire to everyone who’d ever hurt them. I wanted to cry at the thought of a teenage Oakley having to suffer through that, having to watch them mutilate their best friend’s body.
But all I could do was hold them tighter and rub my hand up and down their back.
“By the time they finished, I was… I didn’t even care when they started abusing me too. They did the same things to me, but they stopped before taking too many of my organs. They knew from past experience that my body would eventually grow back a kidney and smaller things like that, but they didn’t want to kill me or they wouldn’t have a dragon to harvest blood and scales from anymore.”
My heart shattered, and I felt a few of my own tears run down my cheeks as I held my Oakley even tighter.
How I wished I’d been better at my job, that I would’ve been able to find them when they were first kidnapped and taken away from Garrick. If I could’ve found them, if I could’ve saved them…
I sucked in a breath. I had found them, many times, but the blood witches and that bitch, Sylra, always managed to get away. But maybe if I had—
I cut off that train of thought. This wasn’t about me right now. This was about comforting Oakley. And that way only lay more hurt.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you and your friend.” I kissed their head again. Fuck, those words were so damn inadequate. “I’m so fucking sorry. I wish… I wish I could do something… I just… if I could, I’d set each and every one of them on fire, then bite off their heads for good measure.”
They let out a snorting laugh that turned into a sob and held onto me tighter.
I whispered soothing words in their ear, rubbed their back, and held on, trying my best to keep my own tears at bay. Seeing them like this was breaking my heart.
After a long time, when their crying had calmed into small sniffles, they whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Baby, there’s nothing to be sorry about. You’re allowed to grieve for your friend, and you’re allowed to grieve for yourself.”
“But this happened over a decade ago. I shouldn’t—”
