Ourhome.
Two months ago, I walked without crutches for the first time. Now, I’m running up hills and taking combat classes.
Last week, I returned to the Legion and tested my strength in a training session with Slade, gratified to find that I’m strong enough to challenge him again. He seemed pleased about it—right before he put me on my backside.
I slip inside the front door and head through the space Peyton has taken to calling thevisitor’s area, moving very quietly once I get to the private part of the house.
There isn’t much point in trying to creep inside. To provide an airlock of sorts between the outside world and the privatearea, I had a door placed at both the bottom and the top of the stairs leading up to the private area. But the moment I open the door at the top of the steps, Peyton’s aware of it.
On her first night here, I stayed in one of the guest bedrooms. Well, that is, my head had rested on the pillow for about two seconds before she came to find me.
“Is this where you want to sleep?” she’d asked, hovering in the doorway with her brow furrowed.
“Not really,” I said.
“Then don’t.” She held out her hand to me, and when I took it, she drew me back into the private area of the house, across the living area, and into the bedroom I’d prepared for her.
She must have looked through the closet already because the few pieces I’d added to it—I’m not about to tell her what she should wear, only give her some options before I send her out with a credit card—were strewn about the floor.
“Will you sleep here?” she asked, pointing to the bed. “With me?”
“Sleep, yes,” I said firmly.
She broke into a smile that made it very difficult to keep my resolve and said, “Okay. For now.”
By the time she emerged from the shower dressed in a soft shirt and shorts, she looked half-asleep. All of the worry lines were gone from her face. “The water pressure is amazing.”
She slipped into the bed, curled up beside me, and immediately closed her eyes.
All of the tension seemed to melt out of her body.
“Better,” she whispered.
Within moments, she was asleep, her breathing deep, her features completely smoothed out.
She looked more peaceful than I’d ever seen her.
It was all I needed. That peace on her face. It was everything.
After that, we took it one day at a time.
At the end of the first week, she asked if she could convert one wall of the living area to bookshelves. I told her she could change whatever she liked.
That same week, I went to work, and she went shopping, coming home with jeans, shirts, pajamas, and underwear.
But that night, while I slept, she went out hunting.
It drove home to me the impact on her of a single day spent among people.
For three nights after that, even if she fell asleep beside me, I would wake in the middle of the night to find her gone.
She came back covered in blood, levitating straight to the shower so the floor remained clean, and then she crawled into bed beside me again, scrubbed and clean once more, pressing close to me before her features smoothed out, and she looked peaceful again.
Darkness will always be a part of her life, but not here.
Not with me.
If I can give her a safe place to come back to, then that’s all I need.
