Reaching up with her hand, she sucked her fingers into her mouth. Normally, when she felt like this, she’d search out somewhere small and dark to hide.
But Jared’s arms around her were even better than hiding in her closet.
She felt safe and secure.
So she sucked on her fingers and just tried to blank her mind. Could she slip fully into Little headspace?
Well, she was mostly there.
And if it helped her forget . . .
“Good, she’s awake,” North said.
She turned to look at him. He moved over to them both, cupping the back of her head with his hand.
“I thought I was going to have to wake you up. You need to eat,” Nort told her.
“She’s non-verbal right now,” Jared explained.
North’s eyebrows rose and she felt a pang of something . . . worry? Was he going to think she was stupid?
“All right. That’s fine. I’ll make her some lunch and you can feed it to her.”
“I think that’s a good idea. I’m going to take her to the toilet. Can you also get her some water?”
“Sure.”
Were they going to say anything about Rex? About what had happened?
You could ask.
Yeah, but that would take so much effort. And she didn’t have the energy right now.
“Come on, baby girl,” Jared said. “You must need to go potty.”
Potty? Eek. Did he really just say that?
Why did he call it that?
Well . . . you do need to go.
Yeah, now that he’d said that, she could feel the pressure in her bladder building.
He carried her into the attached bathroom and set her down on her feet in front of the toilet.
She danced around.
Gotta go. Gotta go.
“Sorry, baby. I’m trying to move quickly. But you need to stay still for me so I can unzip you.”
“Daddy!” she managed to get out.
But he finally unzipped her and had her sit on the toilet seat so she could go.
She sighed. What a relief.
She didn’t even care that Jared was in the room. He could leave if he needed to.
