Chapter 9 #3
Because I am trying to make up for a lifetime with two days and know I am already failing.
Because when you yelled I said me, I understood that Leon didn't only hurt your mother. He taught you love meant volunteering for the worst part.
I swallow all of that.
“Because nightmares are worse when they think they have the room to themselves.”
He looks away.
But he doesn't tell me to leave.
So I stay.
The rest of the night is not peaceful. Heath doesn't sleep.
Not really. He dozes in short, ugly slips and jerks himself awake every time the house creaks or Erin shifts beneath her blanket.
I try what I know. Water, left near his hand instead of offered.
A breathing count he refuses until he thinks I have stopped watching, then follows silently.
A pillow against his back because walls feel safer than open space.
Five things he can see. Four he can touch. Three he can hear.
He fights all of it.
Uses some of it anyway.
I do not point that out.
At some point, Erin falls asleep again with one hand dangling off the couch toward him. Heath stares at that hand for a long time. Then, when he thinks I am not looking, he reaches up and hooks one finger around hers.
My throat tightens so hard it hurts.
Omar looks away.
I almost like him for it.
Near dawn, Omar finally makes me leave.
He does it quietly, which is how I know the night has affected him too.
“You need rest,” he says from the doorway.
“I’m fine.”
“You are swaying while sitting down.”
“That’s a skill.”
Heath’s eyes flicker to me.
He is still awake. Pale in the gray early light, shadows bruised beneath his eyes, jaw tight with the kind of stubbornness that keeps children upright long after their bodies should give out.
“Are you coming back?” he asks.
There it is again.
The test.
The knife-edge of it is duller now, but only because he is too tired to sharpen it.
“Yes,” I say.
“You keep saying that.”
“And I keep doing it.”
He watches me.
Then he nods once.
Not trust.
Not yet.
But enough to make me stand carefully and leave before my face gives me away.
Omar walks me back to my room without speaking until we reach the door. I expect a warning. A criticism. A reminder that I am still a complication with federal ties and bad judgment.
Instead, he says, “He has done that since the first night.”
I turn on him. “You knew?”
“Yes.”
“And no one told me?”
“You aren’t his doctor.”
“No. I’m his aunt.”
Omar’s mouth tightens. “He didn't know that until two days ago.”
The truth hits cleanly because Omar never bothers wrapping it in anything softer.
“I know.”
“He may not trust you for a long time.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I lean back against the door, too tired to make my face useful. “I know what it feels like to want help and hate needing it. I know what it feels like to test every hand before deciding whether it is going to hold or hit. I know he may not trust me for weeks. Months. Maybe ever.”
Omar studies me.
“And you will keep trying?”
I think of Heath’s finger hooked around Erin’s while he pretended not to need anyone. His voice breaking around I said me. His little body making itself a wall because every adult in his life failed to be one first.
“Yes.”
Omar says nothing for a moment.
Then, “Good.”
He leaves before I can decide what to do with that.
I sleep badly.
Not because of Stefano this time.
Not mostly.
The kiss is still there, waiting in the dark with all its sharp teeth and inconvenient heat, but Heath’s nightmare is louder. Every time I start to drift, I hear him again.
Don’t take her.
I said me.
They’ll hear you.
By morning, I have slept maybe two hours and woken four times reaching for a gun I don’t have. The house is too quiet and I decide to check on Erin and Heath.
The children’s sitting room is empty when I get there. No Erin with jam on her face. No Heath in the chair by the window pretending not to read. Their breakfast tray sits untouched near the door, eggs cooling beneath a silver cover, toast cut into triangles no one has eaten.
My stomach drops.
Then I hear Erin.
“Maya?”
Small.
Scared.
I follow her voice into the adjoining bedroom.
Erin stands beside the bed in her pajamas, one hand twisted in the blanket and the stuffed rabbit crushed against her chest. Heath lies beneath the covers, cheeks flushed, hair damp against his forehead.
His eyes are half-open but unfocused, his body curled tightly on his side as if even fever cannot convince him to take up space.
I cross the room and touch the back of my fingers to his forehead.
Heat burns against my skin.
Too much.
“Omar,” I call.
My voice comes out calm.
It doesn't feel calm.
He appears in the doorway almost immediately, phone already in hand, face hard as his eyes go from me to Heath.
“He has a fever,” I say.
Heath stirs, lashes fluttering.
“Don’t,” he mumbles.
Erin starts crying.
I sit on the edge of the bed and take Heath’s hot, shaking hand before he can pull it beneath the blanket.
“No one is taking you,” I tell him.
His fingers twitch weakly around mine.
This time, he doesn't let go.