“I’m not sure I have any use for it,” I rasp, buttering my features with bland detachment.
“You can’t think of a single one?”
“Nope.”
He dashes a smear of dust on his pants like a slap of paint, drops to a crouch, and stuffs the book inside my knapsack. “Just in case.”
I snatch the crochet straps from his outstretched hand, the bag heavy with every book that looked even slightly promising. “You’re different.”
The words blurt out of their own, like they’re desperate to bridge some sort of gap between us.
I’m poisoned by instant regret.
“So are you.”
The words hit.
Disable.
Almost make my throat close up.
A challenge and a question disguised as a statement, like he’s asking me to spew my ugly at his booted feet.
I remember how that felt—to look at him and wish he’d give me something.
Anything.
I remember the cold snap of disappointment that swiftly followed, time and time again.
“That’s because I’m done,” I mutter, giving him my back as I shove to a stand and stalk toward the exit. “Don’t follow or I’ll make you bleed again.”
The clear sky bears down on us, light bouncing off every angle of this island of clustered crystals, casting prisms of color across my sallow, sweat-dappled skin and striking me in the eyes.
The crisp sea air nips at me, and I hiss through chattering teeth, squinting down the narrow path chipped into the rock—kicking forward another wobbly step that threatens to tip me over the slope to my left. A slope that falls directly into a long, jagged ravine alive with the sound of gushing water.
This is a bad idea.
I’ve known it from the moment Vicious thrust this old, knotted stick at me—long and bleached, as though it weathered the ocean’s current for decades before it washed up on this shore only to bear the brunt of my torture. But saying no to her determined eyes and fierce, over-enthusiastic nod felt more catastrophic than using the last drips of my fading life force to please her bizarre whim.
But with every shiver that rattles me to the core and every labored step that threatens to buckle my knees, I question that logic a little bit more.
Vicious shuffles behind me, setting her hot hand between my aching shoulder blades, making me shiver for entirely different reasons—the contact sending a zap all the way down my spine.
“I’m tired, Vicious …”
She gives me a gentle shove.
I think she wants me to exercise. Perhaps she thinks it’ll make a difference.
I know better.
I’m fading. Day by day, hour by hour, a little more of my fight drips away. Candescence didn’t help. This arduous morning stroll certainly won’t.
I want to go back to our nest, curl around her little warm body, and fall back into the deep sleep she dragged me from. Nothing like a nip to the ear to rip you free from a cozy state of numbness that feels beautifully eternal.
Though to be fair, it would be nice to see the sea again … to taste it … feel it swirl against my skin …
One last time.
