Every moment.
I’ve beenfighting.
And it’s not because I’m a Red Cap. It’s because I’m me.
So this anger? This rage? This consuming hunger to lash out and conquer and consume?
I really have been living with it all my life.
And I’mdone fearing it.
Air wedges into my lungs, and I don’t realize until I gasp mightily how shallowly I’ve been breathing. Air floods my system, and on the next shake of my head, my vision settles, seeing the world now, albeit through smoke and ripples of heat.
Pain’s there, waiting for me, and my head damn near cracks in two with the force of the ache that splints across my skill.
I gag over the grass beneath me.
“Samson?”
Her voice.
Am I still in delirium? No, no—
I look up, wincing at the motion.
And I see her.
Alyth’s crouched on the ground not two feet from me, one hand extended hesitantly, like she’s wanting to reach for me but isn’t sure what she’ll touch.
That was real.
Everything she said.
That washer.
My eyes snag on her chest, the long red line of a cut. A cut I made.
And she’s still here anyway. She didn’t kill me.
I pulled myself out.
I’m scrambling across the grass to scoop her into my arms before I can think otherwise, and we sit there with me clinging to her, knees interlocked, my arms knotted around her and my face in her neck, breathing,breathing.
She smells like smoke, everything does, but beneath it, she still smells like wild greenery and open skies and freedom.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “I’m so bloody fucking sorry. Darnley, he’s got some way to control me. It wasn’t me, I swear, Alyth.”
Her hands go in my hair, stroking, fingers gentle and calm. “I know,” she murmurs into my neck, the soft brush of her exhale feathering across my skin.
I lean back so I can see her. “You didn’t kill me.” My mouth is dry. “You swore you would. You said—”
“I said I’d take care of you.” Her eyes are teary, her face blotchy red and streaked with dirt. “I swore that if you became a danger, I would take care of you. And I did, didn’t I? Until you could pull yourself out.”
Just like there are different types of fighting, there are different types of taking care too.
I shake my head, too strung out to laugh just yet. “Tricky girl,” I say.
She smiles.
