Page 44 of Barinov

Did your hands shake while you sketched in the sun?

Did you pray it would end once the damage was done?

Creation cuts deepest when love’s in the way.

That’s how I know you’ll obey what I say.

Now breathe, little Lexie. Your turn’s coming fast.

Twelve days to savor what’s too broken to last.

So, go home and get ready. Soon your clue will be there.

For my game will wait patiently… til you’re back in your lair.

Cade bolted out of that rickety hellhole so fast he tumbled down the stairs. All I could do was hold him tight and try to give him some sort of peace after everything.

It was all fucking useless. He still shattered into pieces I couldn’t put back together.

I should have done something more. Should have broken something. Someone. But I didn’t. I fucking froze because I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t fix him.

Breathe, Barinov.

I look over the coffee table at Cade.

He’s slumped in the seat next to Roman with his head tilted toward the window. His body jolts in his sleep under a flannel blanket. Probably trapped in the same nightmare I just clawed my way out of.

Graphite still faintly stains the tips of his fingers. He stood at the sink for nearly twenty minutes when we got back to the hotel, scrubbing until the skin on his knuckles split. I tried to get him to stop but he wouldn’t. He just kept muttering under his breath that he had to get it off.

That he could still feel it.

Eventually he gave up and let me take over. But no matter how many times I tried to wash that shit off of his hands, it wouldn’t budge.

A mark neither of us could erase.

“Should we wake him?” I whisper.

Sabine shakes her head, long braids shifting on her shoulders. “No. Never wake a man when the night spirits still have their claws in him.”

I frown. “That’s not very comforting.”

“It’s bad luck and this family is already heavy with it.” Her gaze tracks to Cade. “You want to help him? Don’t drag him back into the fire.”

Her eyes land back on me, dark and glinting with something fierce. “Now, tell me what you saw.”

I tense. “It was Bella and Zeke. He was on top of her and… I…” I stop myself, the sting in my eyes growing. “Sabine, I couldn’t stop it.”

“No,” she agrees. “You couldn’t.”

That simple agreement cuts deeper than any reprimand she’s ever given me. And she’s given me plenty over the last few months.

“But you will,” she adds.

“How?” I sniffle, wiping my cheek with the back of my hand. “How can we even begin to fix this shit?”

“You don’t.” She gives a brittle shake of her head. “You learn to live with the cracks. And if the bleeding ever gets too great for you alone—” She slides her hand up from my arm to my heart, her palm warm over the hammering in my chest. “You let someone else stitch ‘em closed.”

“I’m not sure I know how,” I admit.