Shadow snakes out a tentacle, slowly, carefully as if making sure not to scare me. I’m already laying on my side because it hurts too much to roll over. The back of my shirt lifts and Shadow sees the big purple and yellow bruises I already saw in the mirror.
The rumble that goes through him is low, vicious, and makes his darkness ripple. As if he is suppressing some very big, very angry emotion.
"I’m sorry," I say in a low tone before burying my face in Snarp.
The rumbles stop and velvet-soft tendrils wrap around my chin until I’m forced to look up.
"You have nothing to be sorry for, Evie."
I want to believe him. I want it so much my chest aches from the effort.
"I spilled the dirty mop water everywhere."
Everyone else tried to tell me afterward that Mother Mary was bad, but I know they are wrong. I was bad.
As they were putting Mother Mary in a police car, we connected eyes. She looked at me with such disappointment, my tummy dropped straight out of my bottom.
Shadow growls. "She is a broken person full of darkness and she visited that darkness on you," he explains.
"But you’re dark," I say, not really understanding what he’s trying to say.
That gives him pause.
"Sometimes a human can be worse than the monster under the bed. And... " He pauses. "You fill me with things other than darkness."
"Like what?"
Velvet tendrils rub along my tender back, soothing me a little.
"Like caring," he murmurs.
No one’s ever said that to me before. I want him to say it again, but I don’t ask.
"Take me with you," I say.
"What?"
I try to sit up, but the fire on my tender skin and the soreness under it forces me back down. "When you go under the bed, take me with you."
"Evie," he says my name like he is sad. "I can’t."
A hundred scissors cut my heart, each accompanied by a voice.
You don’t have any character.
Who would want you when you’re like this?
Are you even trying?
You mess everything up.
My eyes begin to burn with tears again. "Why?"
Shadow leans in until his forehead presses against mine. Even this close, his face is blurry, always slightly morphing and moving.
"I would if I could, Evie, but it’s not possible. Please believe me."
It’s hard to stop the crying once it's started. My body is wracked by hiccupping sobs I try to keep in.
