I thrash and claw and kick, desperate to get back under the bed.
Tohide.
“It’s okay,” the woman says from beside the door, over and over. “His name is Baze. He’s here to help.”
Her face scrunches up, and she turns away. The smell of her sadness fills the room.
The arms tighten until my strength goes. Until I stop fighting and trying to make my scared sound that always hurts my throat.
The man places his hands on my cheek and arm, and a warmth fills me that makes my teeth chatter less. Makes me feel less sleepy.
“I know the hurt is loud, but it won’t always be.” He holds my hands, like they’re butterflies caught in a warm hug. “One day it’ll stop screaming at you. It’ll become nothing more than awhisper.”
It’s the whispers that scare me most. There’s so many of them, and they’re always there, speaking to each other.
Speaking tome.
Maybe I should let that huge hole in my chest gobble them up. Maybe the horrible dreams would stop. The ones where I hear those same voices but from real people that always end up burnt in the dirt with wide eyes that won’t blink.
“Small seeds grow into big, strong things.” He blows heated air onto my hands. “But they need sunlight and warmth to set their roots in the soil. And like it or not … you can’t get that under the bed.”
I lift my head, seeing eyes half-hidden by messy hair the color of chestnuts. He smiles, and though it doesn’t reach his eyes, I like it. I like his warm hands and the soft way he looks at me. It makes the backs of my eyes sting.
“Don’t cry, Laithy.” He brushes his thumb across my cheek, collecting some of the cold and replacing it with a smear of heat.
I don’t know why he’s telling me not to cry when he has tears on his cheeks, too.
“I’ll be here for you.” His voice is rougher than it was before, and his smile loses shape. “Always.”
Irock, bunched and bound around myself, filling my lungs with a drugging bout of air that’s allhim.
So much him.
He’s painted all over me. Hideous smears on my hands and arms. Drying.
Cracking.
Like the cracks weaving through my chest.
Don’t cry.
Don’t cry.
Don’t cry—
The choked echo of Rhordyn’sfinal words pummel me like fisted blows to my unguarded heart. I tug the talon’s empty sheath from where it was stashed down the back of my pants, chucking it like a hot coal.
What have I done?
Don’t cry.
I belt out scream after scream—the sound wilting with every painful scour of my raw and ruined throat until each is barely a wisp of noise.
I thread my fingers through my hair. Fisting it. Tugging at the roots. Images blooming on the backs of my lids in rapid succession:
The burrow. The small rank cells and their withered inhabitants.
The Aeshlian—chained beneath a single beam of light.
