Quieted.
Soothed as Silas slowly rocked him and kept running his hand down his back.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
“MySiwas?” Kai hiccupped through his tears.
“Yeah, buddy. Your Silas. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“Ohhhh-kay,” that baby mumbled into his chest.
Crushing.
It was absolutely soul crushing.
The amount of sorrow and love that suddenly splintered out from the middle of me.
A breaking apart and a coming together.
Brittle pieces knocked free and a knitting of something profound winding itself into the vacant, harrowed places.
I thought Silas must have felt the impact because that ferocious, unrelenting gaze fell on me.
Sadness and devotion and something that looked like his own terror poured out.
It turned out he was right all along. I was looking for trouble.
I was in so much of it.
Because I knew right then he would destroy me.
He was nothing but a bomb dropped right in the middle of barricades and levees I’d built up to protect myself.
Atomic.
Complete annihilation.
Silas slowly shuffled over to the bed and crawled in beside me with Kai still in his arms.
He laid down with the little boy, and I followed suit.
No restraints or securities left.
Not after him touching me and showing me that I couldbe. That I had the power to ask for what I wanted. For what I needed.
Not after he’d held me after.
And sure as hell not after this.
Kai nestled in the sanctuary between us. His little thumb went to his mouth, and he hugged his blanket to his chest as he released a jutting sigh, the horror of the nightmare that had woken him expelled into the calm swells of the lapping night.
He made little grunting noises as he snuggled deeper, and Silas stared across at me from over his head.
Jaw clenched, eyes wide and fathomless.
Letting me see all the way to the bottom.
Where maybe he was every bit as afraid as the rest of us.
