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“SEAN!” they yell at my dad.
“He’s fine! He’s fine. He’s with us! Let him be! He’s just worried about the fucking girl.” Their arguing becomes background noise. Blood pumps in my head. My ears ring.
“Luna!” I yell and open a door in the short hallway. Bathroom. Empty. “Luna?!”
“Donnelly,” she calls out, sounding near the end of the hall. She’s here. It propels me to the last wooden door. I fling it open and step inside. Alarm barrels into my chest.
She’s disoriented on a lopsided bed, her right wrist handcuffed to the wooden headboard. Her damp hair is tangled with ribbons, her eyes swollen from crying.
I latch the lock on the door and rush over. “Luna?” I press a knee to the mattress, and I touch her splotchy, tear-streaked cheeks. Luna. What’d they fucking do?!
“Donnelly.” Her voice shatters, overwhelmed tears slipping out. She’s intaking the sight of me like I’m just fiction inside her head. “Donnelly.”
“I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.” Her tears roll over my hands, and her surge of relief rattles her body. I kiss her forehead, pain wrapping around my heart. She tries to embrace me but her handcuffed wrist tugs against the restraint.
An anguished noise claws up her throat.
“I’m getting you out,” I say. Hurrying, I unclip my makeshift earring, a safety pin, from the cartilage of my ear.
She tries to steady her breathing. “My mom…where’s my mom?” She blinks hard.
“She’s safe with your dad.” I sweep Luna quickly again. She’s still wearing fishnets and shorts, but her hoodie is gone. “Did they touch you?” Sickness and wrath sear my throat, but there’s no time to drown in feelings. I’m only rushing with the safety pin. I see a lamp lying sideways on the floor. I’m guessing that’s the thud I heard from the kitchen.
“They just…picked me up,” she croaks.
“They didn’t try anything with you?” I ask, unable to even paint the fucking picture.
“No.” She rubs her eyes with her free hand. “They…said something about…selling my hoodie, I think.” Her voice sounds so small. “Donnelly.”
“I’m right here.” I clutch her cheek again, pink and purple streaks swiped on them. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She tries to hold my gaze, but her eyes are flooded with tears. “I’m really scared,” she cries. My heart breaks into a million serrated pieces.
She was never supposed to be in this house.
She was never supposed to meet my family.
She was never supposed to be swept into the darkness of my childhood. I’d left it all behind me, and to think that the one girl, the only girl, I’ve ever loved is hurtled to this place is fucking sickening. I hate it more than I’ve ever hated anything.
“I’m getting you outta here.” I wiggle the safety pin into the lock of the handcuff. Come on. Unlock, you motherfucker.
She squeezes her eyes shut in pain.
“What hurts?” I ask.
“My head.” She gulps air.
“Did they hit you with something?” I shift the safety pin to the left and hear a click. The handcuff comes undone, but Luna is slow to move. I help lower her weak arm to her chest.
“No. I think…I think I fell on the concrete.”
I inspect the top of her head. No gashes. No blood. Just a small bump near her hairline. I think she’ll be alright, but she needs a real doctor. She might have a concussion.
When she sits up more, she winces and her hand hovers near her abdomen. I lift her white T-shirt. Red welts blemish her ribcage like bad watercolor art. One rib looks sunken in, probably fractured. My blood boils. I’m gonna kill them. Whoever did this to her—I want to strangle against the wall.
I’ve never felt this furious, this destructive. Not in my lifetime.
“PAUL!” Someone knocks. “Come out!”
Luna clings to my biceps with panicked breaths. “Donnelly.” Her fear is killing me all over again.
I gently touch the back of her head and whisper, “I’m not leaving you. I’m not leaving you.”
She blinks a few times, woozy, but she’s trying to root herself to my assured gaze. Her eyes start falling to the blue kyber necklace.
While I’m bending to her, the crystal hangs between us like the force between me and her, and a swell of emotion pools underneath me, through me, through Luna. Love and light are the powers that’ve guided me. Been racing towards them my whole life. I just never realized all this time I’ve been racing towards her.
She wraps her weakened arms around me. “Where…where are we going?” she asks.
“To your planet, space babe.” I scoop Luna into my arms, cradling her carefully against my chest, and she closes her eyes, seemingly breathing in my words like morphine. I whisper, “You’re safe now. We’re gonna fly there together.”
She curls herself closer to my body. Her breaths slow.
“Don’t fall asleep, alright?” I worry about her going unconscious. “Stay awake with me.”
