He doesn't respond, and I keep begging him. "I can't leave her. Please!"
He runs faster and faster the more I plead. The more broken sobs that wrack through me.
Eventually I settle down to a sort of trance of trembling, empty numbness.
Images of each of the women keep swimming through me. Being killed. Being raped. Telling me they trusted me and I failed them.
Each nightmare tearing deeper and deeper wounds.
I barely notice when his movements slow, though it's hard to miss when he repositions me so he can scale the cliff to our cave. When he sets me down I glance up at him.
His eyes are wild, his face is pale, and his fur is standing on end. There is something rigid and unyielding about him.
I've never seen him like this.
It jolts me out of my trance, pain surging right back in. This time of a different sort because I know I've harmed something between us.
I'm heartsick just thinking about something destroying our easy companionship.
I'm afraid to look at him any closer, so I screw my eyes tight, but he won't allow it.
51
Thivoll
"Look at me."
After a long trembling moment, she does. Her eyes are leaking, the surrounding skin bright red and her blue eyes shot through with it.
"I thought I lost you."
Both of us are shaking, but the space between us seems like it shouldn't be crossed.
I know something is wrong with her, of course, but at no point have I more keenly felt the impact of my ignorance about her species.
"What does the leaking from your eyes mean? It's scaring me."
She's holding herself tight, arms clenched around her elbows. I want to embrace her, but everything about her posture is telling me she doesn't want to be touched.
Considering I forcibly moved her here, I can't blame her.
"I'mcrying. It's a result of big emotions. Sometimes humanscrywhen they're happy or even angry, but most of the time it's because we're sad. Or scared."
"Which one this time, besides scared?"
"I don't know. So many things. Right at this moment because I feel like I destroyed something between us."
A pang stabs through me. I reach forward to stroke her cheek but she dodges away.
I pull my trembling hand back.
"No. You did nothing wrong. I did. I can't ever risk you like that again."
She moves her hands up higher on her shoulders, bending them even farther in, her grip so tight her usually pink skin is white.
"I need to be alone," she tells me, then shuffles back to our nest.
So few words . . . to cause so much pain. I push down the guttural groan that wants to rise to give it voice. She is too folded in on herself as it is.
