Page 191 of Pareidolia

Good.

“Take it,” I whisper. “Take… ta… it… b-back.” I try to inhale, but it burns. I can’t get a deep breath. When I exhale, my lips feel wet.

When I breathe in again, Nox is there. For the first time, his arms around me feel warm as he pulls me against him, and his hands feel desperate as they press against the hole in my chest, in my stomach. The slash on my neck.

For the first time, I feel an emotion pouring from him that I didn’t think he could feel.

Nox is…

“Afraid?” I whisper, and he growls.

“Stop.” He lowers me to the floor, crouching over me like a wild animal trying to protect its mate. The danger is gone, though—Ewan is dead and Noah’s unconscious. “Take it back,” he hisses.

Nox wraps his hand around my wrist and drags my fingers along his cheek, the wounds on his chest. Across his wings…

It just gives the tendrils inside me space to slip back to him—the red at my fingertips bleeds back to pale.

It makes me smile.

At least, I think I smile.

“Okay… s’okay.”

You’re okay, I want to say, because the more of me that bleeds into him, the more the wounds on his chest close.

This is how it’s supposed to be.

“Take it back!” He whispers it this time, clawing at his own wrist to bleed that liquid against my chest. It’s probably the only reason I’m still breathing—the only reason I get this chance to see him.

To say goodbye.

“Mmm…”

“Stay,” he demands, but I can’t. “Aspen… stay. Stay, stay, stay.” And then a word I didn’t even know he knew. “Please…”

It’s so… soft.

Afraid.

My monster is afraid. Fuck, can monsters be sad? It’s apparently an emotion I can feel too, because I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go, but I’m not going to take him with me.

“Don’t… d… don’t. Love… y-you… showed…” It’s hard to get words out, hard to draw breath into lungs that feel wet and full. “Showed me. I… did I?”

Show you.

Did I show you?

I love you, I think, as much as a person like me could love someone. In ways that I could only love because of you.

“Nev… never…” I can’t get it out.

Never without.

It was supposed to be never without.

I can’t say any of it. Nox’s wings are thrumming. Slower.

Slower.