Page 88 of The Knucklebone Brothers

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she sobbed, the words muffled against my shirt.

I held her tighter, my arms a cage around her, a promise she couldn't run. "Nothin'."

She sobbed into my chest, the sound a raw, ragged thing. "I'm fuckin' broken."

I looked down at her, at the tangled mess of her hair, at the tear tracks on her face. "No." My mouth brushed her hair, the strands soft and wild against my lips. "You're finally comin' out to play."

She went still, her body tense. I smiled. Because there was a difference. Broken things were discarded. Broken things were replaced. But somethin' that had finally cracked open? That was a weapon. And I wanted to be the one to wield it.

Blythe's big hand restin' on her back, a warm, steady weight. "You should know better, Rory," he said, his voice a low, gravelly whisper. "We're not afraid of a little blood."

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and wet, a desperate, terrified hope in their depths. "What if I ruin this?"

A low chuckle rumbled in my chest, and Blythe let out a soft, breathy laugh. "Then fuckin' ruin us," he said, his voice a dark, intimate promise. "We're not made of glass."

I looked down at her. "You don't have to be good for us," I whispered, my voice low, tryin’ to make light. "You don't have to even be sane."

Her fingers curled into my shirt, the fabric a desperate anchor. "You don't have to be easy," I continued. "You don't even have to be human most days."

She looked up at me through her tears, her eyes a beautiful, broken thing. I wiped one away, my thumb brushin' against the soft skin of her cheek. "I'll still come lookin' when you hide."

My smile widened. "And if whatever is inside you finally claws its way out..." I kissed her forehead, my lips a soft, possessive press against her skin. "...I'll make room for her, too."

Neither of us spoke for a while. The room looked like a goddamn tornado had a tantrum in here. Broken glass glittered like frost on the floorboards. The lamp was in pieces, a dead, metal insect. A chair was overturned, its legs pointin' at the ceiling like it was prayin' for mercy. One of Amos's paintings, a sad-eyed clown with a tear frozen on its cheek, was hangin' crooked from where she'd thrown somethin'.

I looked around, my eyes dartin' from one broken thing to the next, my mind a catalog of chaos. Then I looked at Rory, her face a tear-stained mess. She followed my gaze, her eyes dartin' over the wreckage.

"I fucked everything up," she whispered, her voice thin.

I glanced at Blythe. He shrugged, a small movement. "Looks better."

A tiny, broken laugh escaped her, a sound like a shard skitterin' across the floor. Good. Still alive. Still laughin'. I brushed a piece of glass away from her knee, the shard sparklin' in the dim light. "You hungry?"

Her eyebrows pulled together, a small, confused furrow. "What?"

"You heard me."

"I just destroyed half your fuckin' house."

"I noticed."

"And you're askin' if I'm hungry?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

I considered the question. Because she'd been screamin' for twenty minutes. Because her voice was raw. Because I wanted to control every aspect of her existence, from the air she breathed to the food she ate.

Blythe stood up, his long legs unfoldin' from the floor. He stepped over the broken lamp and disappeared into the kitchen, his movements silent and careful. I looked down at Rory. She stared after him, her eyes wide and wild. Then back at me.

"You two are fuckin' insane," she said, her voice a low, accusatory whisper.

I grinned, a crooked thing. "Finally figured that out?"

She rolled her eyes. A little. Barely. But it was there. I liked every version of her I'd ever seen. The scared girl in the institution. The angry girl in the diner. The wild girl on the carousel. And the thought that she might finally understand that made somethin' satisfying curl inside my chest. She'd spent her whole life believin' she was too much. Too damaged. Too difficult. Too crazy. She'd never understood the problem wasn't that she was too much. The problem was that she'd spent her whole life surrounded by people who were lame.

I stood and offered her my hand. She stared at it, a silent battle playin' out in her head. "Where are we goin'?"