Page 99 of Hallowed Bones

Racking sobs overtake me. My body convulses with how hard I’m crying. My chest threatens to crack wide open. My stomach aches. My head throbs.

All around me, I can sense invisible eyes watching. “Go away!” I scream, shoving my arms out and connecting with something hard and warm.

The dark doesn’t scare me. It’s the memories that live inside it that terrify me. They crawl beneath my skin—cold, clawed things with the voices of people I used to love.

My mom’s face appears before me again, surrounded by flames. Her pretty skin turns charcoal black, cracking and flaking away as her jaw unhinges, and inside, the golden fire erupts, capturing her and taking her away.

“No!” I’m screaming before I even realize it. My throat’s raw, my chest caving in like it’s trying to disappear into itself. There’s blood on my hands—again. The fire reaches for me, too close, too real. I smell smoke and something worse. Ash. Bone. “No!” I sob again. “Please … no.”

And then—

“Haven.” A second voice cuts through the darkness.

“Wake up. Come on, shortcake. Open your eyes.”

Hands. Real hands. Gripping my shoulders, shaking me just enough.

My lashes flutter. I gasp for breath as the nightmare clings to my mind.

Reyes is there—his face the first thing I see through the blur of tears and sweat and shame.

Fuck.

I’m soaked and shaking, gasping for air as my breath saws in and out of my chest. The echoing sound of a wild animal punching out half-broken pleas and sobs surrounds us. Are those noises coming from me?

“I—I didn’t mean to—” My voice cracks. “I thought—I was—Cameron?”

Reyes looks at me but doesn’t say a word. Not yet. He pulls me against his chest, turning the two of us until I’m no longer stretched out on one of the library’s couches and am instead propped up in his lap. He winds his arms around me without hesitation, then presses my face into his throat and soothes me with soft shushing noises.

“It’s okay,” he assures me. “It was just a nightmare.”

A nightmare?

I blink even as my body automatically sinks against his, seeking out the solid strength of him. The faintest smell of incense lingers on his clothes. I reach out, gripping the soft cotton material. Real. He’s real.

I’m safe once more and the realization has me collapsing against him as if I’ve never felt this before. I have, just not in a long time.

“Breathe with me.” His lips are by my temple, the words a whisper, tethering me to reality and to him. “Match me, Haven. In … and out. Just like that.”

I try.

I fucking try.

But the sobs keep coming, torn from me like roots ripped from the earth. My fists curl in his shirt, gripping like it’s the only thing holding me together.

“I’m sorry,” I choke out. “I didn’t mean to—”

He pulls back just enough to look at me, his hand cupping my face, thumb swiping beneath my eye. His fingers come away wet with my tears. “Haven.” His voice is steel wrapped in velvet. “You never have to apologize for needing help.” My lips quiver, but he’s not done. “Crying doesn’t make you weak, it makes you real.”

And though he doesn’t say it, I hear the following in my head like a ghost’s whisper.

It makes you human.

“I’m not okay.” I whisper the words, choking them out through a half-closed throat that doesn’t want to release them.

“I know,” he says, quiet. Honest. “But you’re not alone.”

Something in his gaze—intense, unyielding, tender—sinks past the panic. Past the fear. I’m a broken mess, shattered and held together by little more than hope and fear and he’s not afraid of that. He doesn’t shy away from the jagged edges that I’ve somehow managed to tape together. He’s not afraid of my cracked pieces, and he doesn’t flinch when I fall apart.