Page 43 of Juniper Unraveling

“Six, stop!” I manage between choking, and just like that, he snaps out of it.

His pupils shrink to the stark blue from before, and his brows swing up into a remorseful expression. He releases my neck and scrambles from my body, kicking himself backward until his back hits the wall behind him.

It takes a minute to catch my breath, and I sit up, holding my throat, bent forward with a hearty cough.

Fists beating at his temple, Six rocks in place, but stops to shake his head. A sound like a tortured animal echoes through the barn.

I scramble toward him, careful not to touch him unexpectedly. “I’m okay. Six, stop. I’m okay.”

He continues to hit himself, and at the first sight of blood, I brave the reach and take hold of his flailing arm.

The action stops him immediately, and the shine in his eyes, coupled with the tormented expression on his face, is all the apology I need. “You didn’t mean to hurt me, I know that. You had a nightmare.”

He cradles his head in his hands, tucking himself into his knees.

“Come lie down beside me. Come on, Six. It’s okay.” I tug at his arm, but he resists, twisting out of my grip. I grasp his arm again, holding tight. “Please.”

When he stills, I give another gentle pull, and he allows me to take him down to the floor, where I rest his head against my chest, holding him tightly. His massive body engulfs me, while I stroke his head to calm him, taking in the tremble of his muscles.

Just like the night before, I sing him to sleep.

Chapter 13

Wren

Somehow, a week passes.

Every night, I sneak out to the pole barn, singing Six to sleep and making sure I’m back in bed before daylight. Six hasn’t attacked me since the first night, and in fact, he’s come to expect me each night, sometimes sitting up in bed before I arrive and nuzzling in beside me until he falls fast asleep.

During the day, he helps me with chores, muscling the heavier stuff I tend to avoid. Within a week, his bruises have begun to yellow, and some have already faded into the healthy bronze of his skin.

Papa removed the silver band at his throat with a key he had tucked in his office somewhere. I wanted to ask him how he came about it, but I was certain he wouldn’t bother to answer. Even with all the keys he’s collected for me, he’s never produced one like that before—tubular in shape, as I expected.

Red ligatures mark the band’s painful grip, but it hasn’t proven to be the reason Six doesn’t talk. He still hasn’t said a word, but that’s okay, because we’ve worked out a system.

And Papa seems more tolerant since Six fixed the broken treadle pump and cleaned the sand from the solar panels—two things he himself never seems to have time for.

The close shave of his hair has begun to grow out a bit, shadowing the scars and tattoo on his head. The stubble spreading across his chin is a constant reminder that, in spite of his innocence, Six is a man. A strong man, with the incredible ability to toil all day in the hot desert sun, and uncanny reflexes that make me happy to have him around my clumsy self.

Avoiding the main roads, I lead Six across the long stretches of dry desert to the east side of the community, a book tucked beneath my arm. Every day, I’ve taken him out to a small manmade meadow that sits on the opposite side of the river. The threat of snakes and wolves keep most of the others in the community away, but I don’t worry about that so much with Six.

For us, it’s a place to escape for a while. And it’s here that I tell him what bits I’ve learned from Papa about the land.

Even if he can’t talk, he understands and picks up information quickly.

Spreading a blanket onto the ground beneath a cottonwood, I set out the book and offer him a notebook and pencil, in which he’s begun to copy some of the words. I lie beside him, picking up where we left off from the day before, sounding out the various words, and pause to let him try spelling them out.

“The word is Six.”

Lips drawn to a tight line, brows furrowed in concentration, his pencil hovers over the page, until he sets it to the paper.

I smile when he draws the number six on the page and lightly jab him in the arm. “That’s cheating!”

A smile graces his lips, perhaps his widest smile yet, and it catches me off guard.

I stare at him for a moment, absorbing the beauty of his face, how much he’s changed in just a matter of a week. The blood red in his eye has returned to white, and the stunning blue of his irises is almost blinding.

As if he senses me staring at him, he looks up, and the dimples in his cheeks fade to something more serious. His gaze falls to my mouth and stays locked there.