Page 98 of Dark Destiny: A New Thread in the Tapestry

We are going to have to get very good at blocking, Yaaf sent into the hive.

"So, what do we do now?" Armos asked.

He had wandered to the front window and was looking out at the quiet street. "We have houses with beds, televisions, and refrigerators filled with food." He turned. "We're going to be given one lousy job of guarding Navuh that doesn't require more than one of us at a time. What are we going to do with ourselves the rest of the time? What do we even know to do other than killing?"

No one had an answer for him.

"Yaaf!" Tomek gripped his hand. "Come see my house. I want to show you my room and my toys." The boy hauled him toward the door, and Yaaf was grateful to the five-year-old dragging him out of a conversation about the purpose of his existence.

It took about five minutes to cover instead of two because Yaaf had to accommodate Tomek's shorter strides.

Compared to the empty houses, Sullha's home seemed much warmer and lived-in, with Tomek's drawings decorating the refrigerator door.

The boy's room was a wonderland.

"Play with me." Tomek plopped on the floor and pulled out a box filled with colorful plastic pieces.

"Maybe some other time. My friends are waiting for me at our house."

Tomek wasn't happy about that, but he stood up. "Then come see Mama and Nana's rooms."

"That's Mama's room." He opened one of the double doors and Yaaf's mouth went dry.

The bed in the room was big, bigger than the beds in the island's hotel. It took up half the room, and Yaaf forced his eyes away from it and looked at the couch and the armchair and the coffee table.

Sullha stood in the doorway, watching him take it all in, and neither of them said a word.

"You can watch television in here," Tomek said, oblivious, patting the couch in front of the bed. "Mama has a television and a couch. I watch mine in Nana's room, but Mama lets me watch in here sometimes." He said the word television as if he were talking about magic, because to him it still was. "You can come watch a movie with Mama. It's more fun to watch together than by yourself."

Sullha's cheeks turned a deep red.

Yaaf looked at her over the top of her son's head, and Sullha looked back. The seven behind his eyes turned all at once and very deliberately faced the other way.

"I'd like that," Yaaf said. "I'd like that very much."

38

SULLHA

Tomek's asleep. Come over. Sullha pressed send before she could lose her nerve.

The reply came back so fast that Yaaf must have been holding the phone.

On my way.

Standing in the middle of her living room, she pressed both hands against her stomach to keep the butterflies from bursting out through her belly button and taking flight.

They were rioting, but she wasn't sure whether it was excitement, fear, or both. She wasn't afraid of Yaaf or what he might do to her. She trusted him completely. What she feared was the demons of her past surfacing and hijacking what she had with him.

Down the hall, light leaked from under Leehy's door, and since it wasn't shut tight, she could hear the low murmur of the television her mother was addicted to.

The houses in the village had been built for people who could hear a whisper through a wall, so when the door was closed, no sounds escaped. When Margaret had told her that, Sullha hadn't understood why the female had attached such significance to that detail, but now she did.

Sullha wanted to close that door, but that would give her away.

So what if it did?

She was an adult, a mother of a five-year-old boy, and she didn't owe anyone an explanation for who she invited to her room at night. Especially not to her mother.