I wake up, gasping.
The room is dark. Real dark, not dream dark. The window shows a sky bruised purple with late evening. The IV is still in my hand. My fingernails are still clean.
Other than Eddie, I’m alone. His arm tightens around me at my gasps, his body going alert in that instant-awake way of someone trained to surface from sleep ready to fight.
"Sera, hey, it’s okay," he says. "You're here. You're safe. I'm here."
My heart slams against my ribs. My skin is slick with sweat.
I curl into him and press my face against his chest. He’s real. He’s here. He’s not a dream.
"I have you," he murmurs, stroking my hair.
I press closer. His heart beats against my cheek, steady and sure.
"Can you stay?” It comes out smaller than I want it to.
"I'm not going anywhere." His lips brush my temple. "Sleep, Sera. I'll watch."
I close my eyes, but the dream lurks at the edges, like Vincent and Red Hands are waiting for me to slip back under.
But Eddie's heartbeat holds.
And eventually, I let it carry me down.
Chapter 12
Sera
Myhouselookslikesomething chewed it up and spat it back out.
The windows on the ground floor are gone, not just broken, but gone, the frames empty as eye sockets, shards of glass glittering in the overgrown grass. The porch railing lists hard to the left where something wrenched it sideways.
Cracks spider-web across the foundation, deep enough to fit my fingers in, and the front door hangs at an angle that suggests it's staying attached through sheer spite.
But the house is standing. The bones held. The bones always hold.
Eddie's hand is at the small of my back as I climb the porch steps, a warm, steady pressure. My legs are shaky, and my stomach can’t decide if it’s hungry or nauseous.
Suddenly, James fills the doorway—broad, shadowed, built for worship and violence in equal measure. He's whole. That's thefirst thing my brain registers, and it registers it with a lurch that nearly drops me on the warped porch boards.
Whole, completely renewed. The bruises are gone. The broken fingers are straight and flexing at his sides. The cuts Red Hands carved into him have sealed without scarring, skin smooth and unmarked, as though the damage was just a shitty rough draft and someone erased it. Even the old scar that bisected his left eyebrow is gone.
Only his eyes are different. They flicker as he looks at me, blue to black to a burning ember-gold, and behind him, in the dim hallway, shadows move like wings.
His shadows, not Daddy’s. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.
"Prayer," he says.
And then I’m in his arms, crushing myself to him. Fuck the pain. Fuck my exhaustion. He’s the only thing that matters.
He hugs me tightly, though he holds back so he won’t hurt me.
“I thought I lost you,” I whisper.
He laughs. “Ye cannae even if ye wanted.”
“I don’t.”
