“Wouldn’t Mildred be better suited since...?” I trail off with a raised brow at the obvious issue of me helping Callie while she’s naked in the shower.
Felix shakes his head vigorously side to side. “No. It can’t be Mildred. She doesn’t know… what we know. About her past. Callie hasn’t gotten around to telling her yet, and… well, I just think that with what we know and all that human behavior and psychology books you study, you’d be the best person to help her.”
If Felix were anyone else, I’d tell him to take a breath because he looks ready to come undone, but deep breaths when dead aren’t very helpful.
I, however, take one while rolling my shoulders, because it feels like a metal band has settled around my chest. In some ways, this is what I’ve been training to do, but not now… not like this.
“I’m not a doctor,” I argue, but more for the sake that it needs to be said. I’ll still do it.
“But you’re who she needs,” Felix insists quietly, his tone subdued.
He’s staring down at his feet, a morose expression pulling at his brow, and I can’t help but think of what Callie said. How difficult it must be for him to have to get me because he can’t do this himself. Not even something as small as a comforting touch on her shoulder.
I run a hand over my head, and there’s an uncomfortable crunchiness that I don’t want to think about.
“Okay, I’ll go,” I agree, then request, “Could you keep an eye on Donovan and Nolan for me? They may seem to be fine, but this night… it hasn’t been easy on any of us.”
“No, it hasn’t,” Felix agrees, and the band around my chest gets tighter. The murderers of his family have been brought to justice, but the reasons behind their deaths… it will haunt us all.
Felix disappears and I climb up the porch steps, leaving my boots near the door to keep from tracking any more of the filth of this night into the house. One moment it feels like it was months ago that I was taping ‘Ninja’ to Connor’s chest. The next moment everything feels like a blur and I can’t separate one event from the next, as if it all happened in the same second.
After I climb up the stairs, I knock on the bathroom door, and as expected I get no answer. Breathing out my nerves, I announce before entering, “Callie, I’m coming in.”
Despite the fan running, the bathroom is full of steam so thick that I can almost taste it as I breathe. Her bloody clothes and costume are scattered on the floor, like she frenziedly ripped them off-- buttons from the flannel shirt loose on the ground.
Approaching the shower doors, Callie’s soft mutters are barely audible over the loud shower spray. I call her name again, but she doesn’t answer.
“I need to know if you’re okay,” I say from the other side of the sliding glass doors. “If you don’t give me something, I’m going to have to check myself.”
Still nothing.
Please forgive me.
My heart rattles in my ears as I slowly slide the door open a few inches, and it breaks when I see her. She’s curled in a tight ball in the center of the tub, her nails digging into her arms to the point they’ve broken skin, head bowed with the water pounding on top of her, and her skin is a flaming red color. Down her back there are a few deep scrapes that for some reason haven’t healed.
Seeing her this way, propriety is immediately forgotten and without thought, I strip down to my boxer briefs, grab the closest towel, and climb in. Hissing when boiling hot water hits my skin, I turn the temperature down and wrap Callie in the towel, doing my best to cover as much of her as possible. I sit down behind her and lift her onto my lap. The water turns the color of mud as it sprays clean the grime from my body.
She convulses with violent shivers but seems coherent enough to realize what’s happening, because she shifts sideways to better curl into my arms. With her head against my shoulder, hugging my arm to her chest, she starts muttering again. Now, I can understand her.
She’s repeating, “I’m a monster,” in a constant loop, the words bleeding into each other into nonsense.
“No,columba mea,” I insist, pushing away the hair that sticks to the side of her face. “The last thing you are is a monster.”
“I killed him,” she declares, tears thick in her voice, while her fingers dig into my upper arm. “He’s gone.”
“You had no choice,” I whisper.
Memories of stabbing the dagger into the demon’s throat flash vividly across my mind. He looked so human, his steel blue eyes wide, and the knowledge of what it feels like to pierce flesh with sharp metal will live with me forever.I had no choice.
“There’s a choice. Always a choice,” she whimpers, pressing her face into my neck. “He’s gone. I killed him.”
My eyes burn as Callie falls to wracking sobs, gasping and choking as pain and guilt consume her. Her sorrow pierces my chest like a clawed hand around my heart. Tears collect with the water spray dripping down my cheeks. Everything feels raw inside me, and what little portion of self I’ve managed to hide is cracked wide for anyone to see. Open and bleeding with her. For her.
With one hand, I cup the back of her head, her hair sticking and tangling around my fingers, while the other holds her tight against me, and as best I can in the confined space, rock her gently side to side. I don’t hate easily, but I hated the Alpha with every fiber of my being. He deserved death, but in this singular moment, I wish he was still alive, if only to remove this burden from her shoulders. Something should’ve been done years ago. This shouldn’t have ever fallen to her.
As awful as it is to listen to her cry and be helpless to do anything to soothe her, it’s quantifiably worse when she stops. Her body goes limp, hands dropping to her lap, and it’s like she’s completely gone. Only an empty husk remains in my arms.
“Callie?” I shout, shaking her. “Talk to me.”
