Chapter Fourteen #2
I curl against him, not removing my hand, letting the vibration ground me. Only it doesn’t, because it only highlights the problem. Mine feels off rhythm. Not wrong, but not complete.
“Is that why I can’t quite settle?” I ask. “Why the lake feels louder than it should? Why I keep expecting something to answer when I don’t speak?”
“Perhaps.”
The word is soft.
I close my eyes. “And when we find him?”
“You’ll feel whole again.”
“How do you know?”
He sighs, and for a tempo, I think he’s not going to answer me. “Because it’s how I felt when you returned.”
“You tried to imprison me,” I point out.
“That proves my point.”
“How so?”
“You are the one and only thing in this world that has the power to make me feel loved and invincible. Yet with a single sacrificing act, you broke me into so many pieces I didn’t recognize myself when I looked in the mirror.
” He lets out a long sigh like he’s reliving the pain.
“So I’m fighting my instinct to lock you up and protect you from all threats, including yourself. ”
“I would never hurt you.”
“Not intentionally. I trust you. It’s the realm I don’t trust.”
“You can’t wrap me up in cotton wool.”
He huffs a laugh. “No, you’d likely initiate a fight with it and cause a disaster that no one could predict.
All I’m asking for is that you take a beat to think through your actions, talk to us and let us help you.
I won’t survive another end of Daphne Stone.
My heart would stop beating alongside yours. ”
He gets it. I’m both devastated I affected him like that and elated that he loves me. “I can’t guarantee no disasters. Actually, scrap that. I can assure you they will occur. But I’m learning for the first time in my life that I have more than my sister who I can burden with my chaos.”
“You’re never a burden. You’re the missing piece in our lives. The one who gives us hope and paints the world in bright colors. All that remains is to drag our brother back from his downward spiral.”
Theo has to come home. Not just for me, but for his brothers.
“You really are a big softy beneath all the growling,” I point out.
His arms tighten around me. “Only for you. Have faith. You’ll feel steady once more.”
I chuckle. “If I’m steady, start looking for another girl mimicking me. I don’t want to lose the chaos,” I admit.
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s you.”
That does something unpleasantly warm to my insides. I clear my throat. “Well, good. Because if being whole makes me sensible, I will absolutely throw myself back into the lake for a do-over.”
Hart’s breath brushes my ear. “You’re afraid.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
I open my mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. Because I am. Not of dying. Not of the foe we’ve yet to encounter. Not of dragons. I’m afraid that becoming whole will make me less.
How does that make any sense?
I’m afraid that when we fix this, something will shift, and I won’t fit in my skin the way I once did.
“Don’t go quiet,” Hart murmurs.
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s worse.”
I elbow him.
Wait.
“If I’m missing a piece, does that mean I weigh less?”
“No.”
“Could I float?”
“No.”
“Could I possibly sleep upright?”
“Again, no.”
“What a waste.”
He exhales slowly, but his grip tightens for just a second. He feels it too. A flimsy thinness and a fine thread being pulled by something we can’t see.
The lake shifts again.
The horses snort softly in their sleep.
I turn toward them. “Are you sure they’re not dead?” I whisper.
“Sleeping. Dead horses don’t make noise.”
“I remember when Great Auntie Jean farted. The entire town was up in arms.”
“Over a fart?”
“No, because she was dead when she farted. Apparently, it’s normal.”
There’s nothing normal about a dead farting aunt in my opinion, but after the witches tried lifting a non-existent curse, they got a healer in from the next town who explained it at a town meeting.
From that moment on, all dead folks were buried straight away, and in the sad case of Billy, before he was actually dead dead.
We know, because we found his hand sticking out of the packed dirt the morning after. Poor dude couldn’t make it out.
I squint at the horses. “They look suspiciously horizontal.”
“That’s because they’re resting.”
“And their eyes—”
“Closed.”
I lean closer. “Mostly.”
“Daphne.”
“Fine.” I lean my head back against his chest. “Do you think if Theo has part of me, that he feels this too?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know what it is?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because if he did, he’d have been home the first night you returned.”
I press my lips together. He burns. He rages. He shatters mountains when he’s inconvenienced. If he feels this hollow ache... My chest tightens sharply, and Hart’s arm tightens in response.
“You’re reaching,” he says.
I glare at my hands, checking they haven’t taken matters into their own... hands? Do hands have hands? Nope, all good. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re reaching for him.”
I freeze. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
I don’t mean to. I don’t know how to stop.
Power burns through the air, raising the hair on my arms. The lake surface trembles from beneath the still waters, rippling the surface into frothy waves.
Hart’s voice lowers. “Daphne.”
I force myself to inhale. Slow. In. Out.
The tremor settles.
“It wasn’t me,” I whisper.
“You know differently.”
“I was thinking.”
“You were reaching,” he repeats.
I swallow. “I don’t know how not to,” I whisper.
“I know.”
We sit like that for a while. The fire dies down while the night grows deeper, and with it, my determination to not feel this way a tempo longer than necessary.