Page 67 of Enslak

"They love you so much," Niki continued, her thumb moving against my cheekbone in that way she had. "They couldn't bear watching you trapped, unable to be yourself. They thought they'd already lost you."

They hadn't wanted to lose me. They'd believed they already had.

"Not anger," I said, needing her to hear this clearly. "Family did right thing. Thought right thing."

I reached up and covered her hand with mine where it rested against my face. My hand was so much larger, but I was careful with her. Always careful.

"Mind not gone," I said, the words coming slowly but with intention. "Just buried. Deep."

"I know," she whispered.

"Every day with you," I continued, pausing to find the next words, "clearer. Better."

"You're healing," she said. "Really healing, not just your body but your mind. Your spirit."

Spirit. I didn't fully understand the word, but I felt the truth of it resonating in my chest where the constant cold had started to loosen.

Something in me was mending. Something fundamental that I hadn't known could be fixed.

Because of her.

My heart did that strange thing again, skipping and then racing, and my body responded to her nearness whether I wanted it to or not. I didn't understand all of it yet. Didn't know what to do with any of it.

But that quiet voice at the back of my mind was getting harder to ignore.

Important. She is important.

"Niki," I said. Her name came easily now, naturally. "Thank you."

She smiled, that full, unguarded smile that went straight through every wall I'd built.

"You don't have to thank me," she said. "I couldn't let them kill you. I couldn't let you go."

The words settled into that warm place in my chest where she seemed to live now, permanent and welcome.

I pulled her closer. Carefully. Always so careful with the difference in our sizes, the strength I was always holding back.

She came without hesitation, settling against me with her head on my chest like it was simply where she belonged.

Sitting there by the river. Her in my arms. Memories slowly returning, pieces fitting back into place one by one. Words coming a little easier each day.

For the first time in longer than I could calculate, I felt something I'd forgotten entirely.

Peace.

Chapter 15

Niki

Another week on Avalon and Enslak could actually talk.

Not just two-word responses or halting fragments. Real sentences. Real conversations. He asked questions, made observations, formed opinions. He had opinions about everything, which I found both delightful and occasionally infuriating, because he was usually right.

"You talk too much," he'd said that morning while I was explaining the difference between carrots and the tubers we'd been eating.

I'd stopped mid-sentence. "Excuse me?"

His lips twitched. "Always talking. Words, words, words." He gestured, mimicking my animated way of speaking with his hands. "Like little birds. Chirping."