She speedwalks while her mind runs from whatever hell is trapped in her memories—innately, I know that’s the truth because I do the same thing.
It takes a moment for my feet to work, and when they do, I jog to catch up to her.
“When I got in trouble, I was sent to…to the room.” She says it with such sadness that I feel sick. “Mr. Styx made sure I went.”
She’s staring at me as though that should mean something, but I’m coming up blank.
“Is that your dad? Mr. Styx?”
The leash slips in Clover’s hand, and she lurches forward like a baby giraffe to catch it. I get to it before she does and hand it back to her, but she won’t look at me. “No, Valen. Mr. Styx wasn’t my father. He was an elder—Terra’s right-hand man. At least until he…left ROS.”
“You’re not referring to her as my mother.” I noticed it earlier, the way she hedges my connection to her unless absolutely necessary, but it stands out to me now.
“No, you asked me not to. You said she was dead to you, to us, and?—”
“Woof.” Wrecks barks and takes off after a squirrel, dragging a shocked Clover behind him.
“Gah.” She doesn’t even scream. It’s more like a “whoopsie,” and then she windmills her free arm. I react on instinct and wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her back to my chest.
For three heartbeats, neither of us moves. I feel her breathe, fast and shallow. There’s a floral scent coming from her hair, and I fight the urge to bury my nose in it. Then Wrecks barks again, and the spell shatters.
He’s such an asshole.
“Guess we’ll have to work up to walks,” I say, scowling at her new furry friend. “He’s going to break you.”
She’s still pressed under my arm and pats my belly before pulling away, but my entire body comes alive with her touch.
“It’s hard to break what’s already been shattered, Valen. Wrecks is a good pup.” She turns to the overactive nightmare. “Right, Wrecks? You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”
Holy shit. I might be jealous of a fucking dog.
“So,” she says, down on one knee with her face buried into Wrecks’s scruff. The Bernese mountain dog swallows her with his fur. “The journals. How many do you have?”
It’s a record scratch in my mind. “What do you mean, how many?”
Clover’s shoulders curl in. “I thought Terra destroyed them all.” She plucks at her bottom lip. “Maybe you have the one we hid.”
There are more journals. My cousins were right. “I was hoping we could talk about the entries. There are things I don’t understand. Things written in?—”
“Code,” she finishes. “You had to. If Terra found them?—”
“She would have hurt me.”
Sadness that shouldn’t exist in human nature wraps itself around her shoulders as she shakes her head. “No, not you.”
“What do you mean, not me?” I say sharply, but shockingly, she doesn’t so much as flinch.
“It was much more painful for you to witness my punishments. Terra always found what hurt us the most and then exploited it. For you, it was me. I was always your weakness.”
Clover.
She was my weakness.
My mind is in chaos as I follow her back toward her house. Wrecks, apparently satisfied with his territorial claims over R&RRoad, flops down in the grass on her front lawn, and she drops to her knees to rub his belly while I scan our surroundings.
Clover touches my hand, startling me out of my assessment as energy weaves through my veins, welding us together.
I don’t startle. I’m observant. Regimented. Controlled.
