“He took Rory for a shower,” I grumble.
Layla sighs. “What’s his deal? Why the fuck is he here?”
“End game? Who the fuck knows. I just know he wants her—Rory.”
Layla raises an eyebrow. “Then you’d better get on that, Boss.”
I wince, getting to my feet. Pain flares again as I move. “It would be a fuck sight easier if I didn’t feel so shit. What are you doing here?”
“Collecting your trays. Sky was going to stay with Barbie while I returned them.” She flicks a smile to the small girl. “The chow hall isn’t her favorite place.”
Yeah. I understand that.
The girl is staring at her feet, hands wrapped around her body like she’s trying to physically hold herself together. “You go, Lay. I’ve got her.” Sliding the empty mugs and tray through the slot, I sit down on the floor, leaning against the bars. “Hey, kid. Keep me company for a bit?”
Sky looks at Layla and bites her lip.
“I’ll be quick,” she tells the girl, giving her shoulder a quick, firm squeeze.
I pat the floor. “Take a seat.”
After what looks like a few seconds of intense internal deliberation, Sky lowers herself down, eyes flicking to the door. “Hi.” Her voice comes out as a whisper. “Rory said you were sick.”
“I’m getting better,” I say, forcing a half-smile. “Just a bit of a headache right now.”
Like someone is taking a Godsdamn sledgehammer to my skull.
“Come on, distract me, Sky. Tell me something that isn’t about this godsdamn place.” Inside my thumping brain, I think about the possibility that this little kid has an innate beast inside her.
Sky hesitates, tucking her knees to her chest. “I’m not very good at just coming up with stuff.”
“That’s cool,” I say. “How about you tell me, I don’t know, about your dreams? I have crazy dreams.”
She gives me a slight smile. “I do too. I try to tell Layla about them every morning, but she says other people’s dreams are the most boring things ever.”
Well, not going to lie. I mostly agree with Lay, but not this time.
I want to know if this kid runs through a forest. If she dreams she has paws, fur, and teeth that could shred any prey.
“Sometimes I dream about the lady statue,” she tells me.
OK. Twist, but I nod. “Tell me.”
“She was outside the blue house. I’d talk to her through the glass, then at night, in my dreams, she’d tell me to dry my eyes, that my time would come to be free. That I wouldn’t always hurt.”
My jaw tightens. Poor thing.
There’s an awkward pause, until I think of a way to continue the conversation. “In my dreams I don’t have wings, I have a furry tail and four paws. I run through the forest feeling free.”
“Like a dog?” She cocks her head to one side, a tiny smile touching her lips.
“Something like that,” I reply. “It’s the best feeling in the world, isn’t it? Being unshackled, wild and free.”
As I say the words, my memory prickles—my mother’s voice, whispering a line from some book she kept by her bedside.
“All good things are wild and free, Tally.”
She’d say it when I sulked about our empty pockets and lack of possessions. She’d point to the fields and the birds and tell me I was richer than a king because I had the natural world as my playground, and a family as my haven.
