The knot in my chest pulls tighter. Not from fear. From how badly I want to believe her.
Mercy takes a warm plate of food from near the fire and holds it out. “Here.”
As I stare at it, she waits patiently. Rafe shifts beside me, broad and warm, there if I fold. My fingers tighten on his arm.
Mama Rue snorts softly. “Girl, nobody here’s gonna make you earn supper.”
Heat rushes into my face. I don’t know if she means to be kind, but somehow she is.
Mercy keeps her hand out until I finally take the plate. My fingers shake. I expect someone to tell me to sit somewhere specific. To thank them. To return the kindness.
A woman with long auburn hair reaches over, drags a chair out with her boot, and leaves it angled near the edge of the group instead of in the middle. “There,” she says. “If you want it.”
I look at the chair. Then at Rafe.
He lowers his head toward me. “Your choice.”
That almost undoes me.
I clutch the plate to my chest for one second before I remember food is meant to be eaten. When I look up, Mama Rue is watching me.
“She ain’t broken,” she says, like she’s correcting the air itself. “She’s learning what safe feels like.”
Nobody answers her because they don’t need to.
I swallow air that burns going down.
Someone sets a warm roll on my plate. I stare at it, waiting for the trick. Waiting for the snap of a hand around my wrist. Waiting for the command that always followed being given something.
Nothing happens.
Rafe shifts slightly so he’s half in front of me, half beside me, letting me use him as a shield without making it look like I’m hiding. His body heat helps. His smell helps. His breath, steady and slow, helps. I’m worried how attached to him I already am. But I guess that’s normal when a person becomes the only safe place you’ve had in years.
I lean against him because my legs threaten to fold.
My body settles the second his weight grounds me.
Mama Rue’s voice brushes my ear again, low and sure. “You survived every day built to break you. That makes you strong, child. The mountain’s proud. And so am I.”
I can’t speak, but my eyes burn. I press the roll to my chest before holding it out—unsure if I’m supposed to eat it now or wait for permission.
Rafe places his hand over mine, guiding it toward my mouth gently. “Eat. If you want to.”
I lift the roll to my lips, and take a bite. The world doesn’t fall apart. For one small moment… I think maybe I won’t either. The clan’s voices blend into a low hum around me. Rafe’s warmth keeps my knees steady.
The roll sits in my stomach, unfamiliar but good. For a moment, the world feels almost quiet.
Then metal hits the ground.
A cast-iron pot slips from someone’s hands and crashes. The sound cracks through the clearing. My body reacts at lightning speed, knees buckling. My fingers claw into Rafe’s arm. My throat strains, trying to scream, but no sound comes.
The world narrows fast, collapsing into a single point of white-hot terror. My vision tunnels as my chest crushes in on itself.
No. No. No.
My hands lift defensively over my head—automatic, practiced, burned into my bones. My back curls. My shoulders hunch.Everything inside me folds small, waiting for the hit that always came next.
Someone says my name. Someone else gasps. Boots shuffle in the dirt. All of it filters through water. None of it reaches me.
