“Just promise.”
“Fine. I promise I will read the book. This week. And that I will always be patient with Alina. And that I won’t kill the first boy who asks for her phone number—though evidently I’m free to scare off all the others?”
I shrugged. “I’m hoping that after the first one, you’ll get the hang of it.”
“Oh, also I promise not to laugh when she’s learning to apply eyeliner. Not that there’s any need for that. She was born with beautiful eyes.” He reached up and ran one finger down the left side of my face, from the corner of my eye to the corner of my mouth. “She got them from her mother.”
His gaze held mine, from just inches away, and in it, I saw all the things he wouldn’t let himself say. Apologies for what we’d been through, and promises he couldn’t keep that none of it would happen again.
I leaned in and kissed him.
Gallagher’s hand slid up the back of my neck and into my hair. His head tilted and his mouth opened and he devoured me with that kiss as he had with all the others. As if he might never get another chance.
This time, I thought, he might actually be right.
“You ready?” Lenore whispered as she pulled the bedroom door closed behind her.
I slid the stack of paper envelopes into the box at the top of the closet. “Almost.”
Morning sunlight cast a slanted rectangle on the floor of the bedroom, one corner of it highlighting Alina’s bare foot, in her dresser drawer bassinet. Gallagher and the shifters had gone hunting again, on a mission to find an actual deer and end the mass extinction of rabbits sweeping the forest surrounding our cabin. But Mirela, Lala and Rommily had stayed put. Lala had gotten poison ivy during their previous berry search and Miri was standing over the stove, making her a homemade poultice to ease the itch.
“Can I help?” Lenore asked. “What do you need?”
“Nothing. More time. An alternate universe to escape into.” I sank onto the floor in the sunlight and lifted Alina from her makeshift cradle, careful to support her head. She opened her eyes and began to fuss, but her objections melted into the sweetest hungry noises when she latched on to my breast and began feeding. I pressed one finger against her palm, and her hand curled around it. She held on, blinking up at me, as I tried to memorize her breathy, gulping nursing sounds. And the way the sunlight shined against her bright red cap. And how sweet she smelled, after a bath in the roasting pot, with a palm full of liquid dish soap.
I tried to make that moment last, but within ten minutes, she was fast asleep again, her mouth gaping open, a bead of milk trembling on her chin.
I blotted the milk with the hem of my shirt, then tucked her back into bed with tears in my eyes.
I was determined not to cry again.
“Hey...” Mirela knocked on the door, then pushed it open. “Are you—?” She frowned with one look at my face. “Oh, Delilah, it’s just for an afternoon! We’ll take good care of her, and she’ll be right here waiting for you when you get back.”
“I know.” I sniffled back tears and made myself set the homemade bassinet on the bed. “It’s just...hard.”
“I suspect it’s always hard to leave them for the first time. But you need a little time to yourself. If you’re sure this is safe...?” She turned to Lenore.
The siren nodded. “We’ll take the back roads. No checkpoints. And we won’t go in anywhere. She just needs a little fresh air.”
“Well, you’ll have nothing to worry about here. Just make sure you’re home before Gallagher gets back, or he’ll kill me for letting you out of our sight.”
“Thank you.” I took Miri’s hands. Then I pulled her into a hug. “For everything. If she gets hungry, everything you need is in a box at the top of the closet. The clean diapers are...well, you know where they are. You washed them.”
“Yes. We’ll be fine. Go fend off cabin fever for a couple of hours.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I hugged Lala, then squeezed Rommily for so long I thought she would start to protest that she couldn’t breathe. Instead, she hugged me back and whispered into my ear. “Phantom limbs.”
“I know,” I whispered back. “They still feel pain.”
I followed Lenore to the car and managed to keep it together until we rounded the curve in the narrow road that put our cabin out of sight. That’s when I started bawling like a child.
“Delilah.” Lenore pressed on the brake, and the car began to slow. “Do you want to go back? There’s got to be another way.”
“No. There isn’t. It’s just so hard to leave her.”
“I know.”
“But I’m doing this for her.” Because I couldn’t let Alina grow up in this world. I couldn’t let her life be about survival.
