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She’d have to get over it eventually, right? She was ours. That was indisputable.
“You haven’t gone into her nest yet?” I prodded Dusk one afternoon. We’d entered for the registration card meltdown, I supposed, but she’d invited us that time.
“Haven’t needed to,” he grunted, continuing to scan the textbook open on his lap.
Needed to?
That wasn’t the point. Hecouldhave.
He tapped his pen on the couch arm, then caught my scrutinising gaze and rolled his eyes. “She’s…” He pinched his bottom lip in his teeth, thinking. “She’s more attached to it than I was expecting.”
Huh.
I nodded slowly. Shewasattached to it. On the weekend, when the scent blockers had worn off, her scent was shockingly content when she appeared from her nest for breakfast (which I was getting better at cooking, now).
So Dusk didn’t want to ruin it?
“Soon, perhaps. When she’s a bit more settled.” He glanced down the hallway to the nest, and I could see the desire in his eyes, like he wanted nothing more than to slip down there right now and join her.
Would he even want to bang her in there? Or just hold her. I’d be happy if I just got to hold her, but I hadn’t gone in either. Not even just to be there, which I was allowed to do if I didn't touch her.
Neither of us had crossed the threshold.
“And Ransom?” I dared ask.
I knew what Dusk had been doing with her scrunchies. I’d felt more flashes of life from Ransom down the bond. Each brief, but enough to give me a burst of hope each time.
Dusk wasn’t confident that she could meet him, yet, and I got it. We were more resilient, but one mistake and he’d snap her in two.
“Better every time I go in,” Dusk replied quietly.
My chest tightened. “We’re getting him back…?”
That thought was so foreign—so impossible that I almost couldn’t comprehend it. It was more than anything I could ever?—
“You paid.”
The world, which had been on the brink of fading away, slammed back down as Dusk grabbed me by the chin, expression tight as he caught me about to spiral.
I stared at him.
“You paid already,” he repeated, dropping his hand.
Had I?
I cycled through it all again. Every moment. Every payment down to the scars along my skin.
“You destroyed yourself. You kept me safe, remember?”
I hated to remember, but the memories hurt. Sometimes if they were bad enough, the blade was unnecessary.
There was one I always returned to.
“Tell me.”
“It won’t help you.” Dr. Wren jabbed me with another needle for another vial of blood, like I had any left in me at all.
“Tell me.” My voice cracked with desperation.My body was spent from the self-inflicted torture, from the experiments they’d run. My aura was a thin thread, my nights disturbed by tremors of agony, through which Dusk would hold me.
