This entire day has made me realize how much I’ve gotten wrong in all my stories over the years. I probably owe my readers a big fat apology because I’ve explained the feeling of terror with Band-Aids and glue, not the full-body visceral reactions it causes in real life.
And here I was, thinking I knew terror intimately.
Poor, naive Clover.
Roman secured three side-by-side rooms on the second floor within an hour of leaving the compound. I don’t know why he chose this place, and I didn’t ask. In fact, I haven’t asked a single question since I got into the car.
I’m too numb to do much of anything.
One of Roman’s men is collecting Wrecks from the last safe house and will deliver him tomorrow. I miss him—the warm, furry reminder that something in this world is simple and good. Wrecks will hate traveling with a stranger, but that cabin isn’t safe either.
I almost laugh.
It’s funny that we thought anywhere would be safe.
I’m sitting on the edge of a bed that smells like bleach, staring at my hands. At least I’m not shaking anymore. Not visibly, anyway. My tremors seem to have burrowed deep inside me, where they’re much more devastating—those serve as a reminder that I can still be broken.
The radiator clanks and hisses like something’s trapped and trying to escape. A car door slams in the parking lot, and my heart lunges for my throat. I don’t settle until I hear drunken laughter fading into the night.
It’s not Terra. Not yet.
“Honeybee?” Valen’s been hovering since we arrived, checking me over for injuries I don’t have. Those are all on the inside, where no one can see.
“I’m fine,” I lie. As upsetting as this is for me, it must be so much worse for him.
I mean, it was his mother who tried to blow us up.
“You’re not, and that’s okay.” He sits beside me, lowering himself in slow motion. He’s close, but not touching.
Space is not what I need today.
“I am though.” Numb is my happy place.
He tilts his head, giving off the cute golden retriever energy I crave. “How’s being fine working out for you? Because from where I’m sitting, fine looks a hell of a lot like coping mechanisms you rely on so you don’t fall apart. We all needto crash sometimes. It’s not weak. It’s not a character flaw. It’s human nature.”
Slowly, deliberately, he reaches for my hand. “But you keep hiding your true feelings behind a wall that you reinforce every time something spooks you. It scares me to think what will happen when you can no longer stretch enough to hold it all on your own.”
I open my mouth to argue, but I can’t.
He’s right.
I’ve beenfinemy entire adult life, and I’ve never felt more broken.
“She blew up our tree.” There’s no inflection in my tone. It’s flat, unfeeling. Dead.
“I know.”
“She wants us dead, Valen. That second explosion— If you hadn’t—” My voice cracks.
“But I did.” His hand squeezes mine and stills the shaking. “And we’re okay.”
“For now,” I whisper, echoing the thought that plays on a loop in my mind.
A knock at the door has my body locking up in preparation for another explosion, even if it’s only in my mind. My legs kick out, and then I’m curling them into my chest—a sitting fetal position with my head resting on my knees as I wait for what comes next.
“Fuck.” Valen drops to his knees in front of me, rubbing his hands on the outside of my thighs. “It’s my cousins, Honeybee. They won’t allow anywhere near us. They’re staying on either side of our room, and we have people positioned in front and out back.”
“It’s us,” Grant calls from outside. There’s a control in his words that’s all business, but it’s edged with fear. They may bereasonably used to threats, but I doubt they’re used to this kind of nonstop danger. It has us all on edge. “Can we talk?”
