Plate and plan ready in my mind, I slip down Thayla’s hallway and tiptoe toward her room.
I crouch, fanning the scrumptious scent through the inch gap between the floor and the bottom of her door. My hand wavesback and forth frantically but freezes when I hear the quietest of creaks from the other side.
My heart races in my chest as I place the plate a few feet away, then stand rapidly with my back to the wall.
I call my Chaos forward and hold my breath.
I’m damn near on the verge of suffocating when her door finally peels open a smidge.
It takes everything in me not to gasp when she steps out of the threshold.
Fuck, two days too long.
Like a damn baby Spyvie creeping through the night, she snatches her treat up and hauls ass back into her room.
She heads straight to her bed that I’m positive she’s barely left in two days.
Her deep inhale echoes around the room and her lids drift shut. I track the slow, torturous, lone tear that slides down her cheek as her fingers mindlessly trace the rim of the plate.
She falls into a stillness that soon morphs into full-body tremors.
The kind that she’d only dare let break free while she’s alone.
Unbeknownst to her, though, she isn’t alone.
“Oh, my little burden.”
Thayla
25
My breath shudders.
The heat from the plate spreads throughout my entire body in a comforting wave of warmth.
It’s quickly frozen over by icy shame.
“Get out.”
My command is weak and raspy. I’m surprised he understood me between the rawness that’s hung around since leaving that…room, and the lack of use in two days.
He did, though.
There’s no doubt about it as he tsks at me.
“Nope.” He smirks, pushing off the wall and stalking toward me like I’m not a feral beast that may attack him.
Again.
“You’ve had your two days, and I have something for you.”
My heart spikes in both hope and horror when he sits on my bed and moves the plate of cookies away from me.
I sit still, mapping out every feature on his face as he pulls his backpack off his shoulders.
The sound of something shattering has me flinching and breaking out of my stare. Light bursts between us, and I squint my eyes against the sudden brightness.
“Nifty little thing, isn’t it? I took two of Vullie’s vials of luminescence and shoved them both in this tube. Crack the two vials together and they create this bright-ass glowing thing. Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but I’m pretty sure I’m the smartest person I know.”
