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I turn my head to look at her. She’s leaning against her cage, eyes out of focus, face pale with a thin sheen of sweat, and she doesn’t even look like Skylenna anymore.
She looks like a broken doll left to gather dust.
“No amount of fake tears will make us trust you again.”
I can sense Ruth turning her head to my left, but she doesn’t say anything. What is there to say? Skylenna is right. We’ve told her our secrets. Our plans. We’ll never be able to talk to her about anything important again.
The finality of that makes me want to curl up and slowly die.
On the other side of Skylenna, Dessin is sitting in his own rageful silence. He’s glaring at the rocky floor like it might hold answers. This must kill him as much as it does me. He’s the one with the craft of knowing someone’s deepest secrets. He can sense betrayal a mile away. How did he not see this one coming?
For at least an hour, we lie in silence, awake, alert. It’s as though we’re all bleeding out. Waiting for death to fall like a deep sleep over our eyes.
The wheezy sound of a man sobbing ruptures this bubble of grief we’re all trapped in.
I sit up, catching Dessin do the same in my periphery.
Niles is hunched over, head between his knees, as his upper body shudders. The tan skin on his neck and shoulders turns red. His entire body seems to bear down like he’s under attack.
Ruth clutches her hands to his bars, making a panicked whine at the sight of his abrupt breakdown. Marilynn reaches for him, too. But it doesn’t matter, does it?
No one can fix the damage Ruth has done to this family.
“Niles,” Ruth pleads, kneeling toward him. “Oh, Niles!”
The noises leaving his muffled face are heartbreaking, even to my stone heart. And it’s astonishing to see and hear. Niles has always been this quirky, obnoxious, weird, inappropriate addition to our family. The kind of man who will crack a joke before he comments on his real feelings about a situation.
Yet here he is.
A grown man.
Sobbing hysterically.
On his birthday.
And it damn near kills us all.
33. Enough Is Enough
Dessin
I glance over my shoulder to see Ruth sitting by herself in the commissary.
It’s a similar sensation to my heart getting caught on a bush of thorns, and no matter how much I try to free it, only more damage is done to that soft tissue.
Why do I feel so fucking bad for her?
She should sit by herself.
She’s a goddamn traitor. I’ve never seen my girl so numb, so completely shattered by this new truth. Then again, I didn’t get to see her after I died.
“We’re getting the fuck out of here,” I announce quietly to the group.
Warrose barely lifts those hazel irises to me, picking at his food the way we all are. Unable to eat even if we really wanted to. There’s a Fun House tonight that we should prepare for mentally and physically. But it’s as though we’ve all taken a rigorous beating to the lungs.
“I’ve mapped it out. But there are a couple of holes that need clarity.”
At this, Skylenna peers up at me through stormy green eyes, swollen and ice cold.
