Chapter 15 Reyes
Reyes
Torrential rain bursts from the sky a few hours before we arrive home.
The weather has added an hour to our drive, and my worry has festered until I’m sick with it.
My fingernails are chewed until they bleed, and my hands clench along the steering wheel.
Food is wasted on me right now, because nausea has been biting at the back of my throat for hours.
The dense clouds turn the midmorning dim, and when we pull under the canopy of our familiar forest, the darkness rivals midnight.
Taryn navigates through the trees so fucking slowly as the rain comes down in blinding sheets.
By the time we make it into the village, the urge to vomit is nearly overwhelming.
I launch myself from the seat as if I’m on fire.
Rain pours down my face and drenches my hair, plastering my clothes to my skin in an instant.
A few of the others stand under the cover of their porches, on guard in case of trouble.
Ronan and Cameron watch from their house, and my head swivels across the path to where Elas and August are huddled in their door.
“Where is he?” I shout over the roar of rain as I scan the row of buildings. “Where is Nyx?”
My eyes find Elas’s just as he exchanges a glance with Ronan, and panic sinks its claws into my chest as I storm over to the Nu’vak. “Where is he?”
Elas chews on his lip for a moment in a rare sign of nerves. “We haven’t seen him since you left,” he admits.
“What?! What do you mean you haven’t… You were supposed to be watching out for him!
What the fuck do you mean?!” I shove his shoulders, then use the neck of his shirt to yank him forward.
In any other situation, it might be funny to watch as he hinges at the waist, allowing me to pull us face to face.
“You said you would take care of him! You promised.” My voice cracks, and his face crumples.
An apology is written all over his expression, but it’s one I’m not ready to accept.
“After you guys left, we waited for a while, but when evening hit and he hadn’t come back, we looked for him. All of us scouted the woods, but we didn’t… we couldn’t find him. Boomerang hasn’t returned either.”
“You couldn’t find him?! You’re supposed to be a tracker,” I snarl as I shove him away.
“I lost his trail,” he admits with a grimace.
“It’s like it just disappeared. His scent, too.
I don’t… I don’t know what happened.” An animalistic growl leaves my throat as I push him again, slapping my palms against his unmoving chest. I whirl around and slam into Ronan, who had snuck up behind us.
“What did you do to Nyx?” Ronan demands. “Why didn’t he come back?” I shove at his arms to knock him out of my way, but he snatches my wrist. His eyes widen as he holds my hand in front of his face, and his mouth parts as he stares at my mark.
“Move,” I growl as I yank my arm back.
“Did you hurt him?” Ronan’s voice has turned threateningly low and deadly as he crowds me. “If you did—”
“I said, move!” I bellow, and before anyone realizes what’s happening, all that bottled-up anger inside me finds a release. My fingers ball into a fist, and my knuckles scream in pain as they find a target in Ronan’s jaw. There’s so much power behind the swing he stumbles backward with a curse.
Solid black and terrifying, his eyes find mine again, but Cameron grabs his wrist and yanks him back. “Ronan, no. Let him go.” I don’t wait to hear a response or give him a chance to argue.
I just run.
My feet slap against the pathway, sending mud and water splashing. I stop at his cottage and bang on the door, yelling his name, but I don’t sense him inside. That tug on my gut pulls me towards the forest and the path we walked.
To where I left him.
Rain pours in sheets as I take off again, soaked from head to toe. My socks squish inside my boots as I sprint through the woods, and rogue limbs whip against my arms and face, but they don’t slow me down. Even when I slip on the moss and land hard on my knees, I spring up and keep running.
New plants obstruct my path, and for a moment, I second-guess my sense of direction. But I know where I am. I know where he is, and I pull out my dagger and slice through the vines to get to him. Several more obstacles block my way, and I understand now why Elas couldn’t find him.
He didn’t want to be found.
My throat closes with the thought and what it might mean, but I force myself to breathe as I continue to fight along the path.
The trees part, and the clearing comes into view.
Without the canopy overhead, the rain showers around me as if I’m standing under a waterfall, and my panic escalates when I don’t see him.
I feel him, though.
“Nyx?” I shout, whipping my head around in my desperation. The rocks are slippery as I stumble to where we sat and fight to stay upright. Steam rolls off the flat surfaces as the heat counters the onslaught of water. His name leaves me again, louder this time. More terrified.
Lightning cracks across the sky and illuminates the world like a bulb trying to flicker awake, and from the corner of my eye, I see it.
A single flower.
A jack-in-the-pulpit.
A katsurrel.
And beside it, covered in a blanket of vines, is Nyx. Curled up in a tight ball, he shivers and shakes, drenched to the very center of his godsdamned bones. His eyes are screwed shut, but they dart frantically underneath his eyelids as though he’s trapped in a dream.
A strangled whine claws its way out of my throat as I fall to my knees beside him. My fingers tremble as I push the matted, rain-soaked hair from his face, and electric sensations shoot through my body at the contact. He shudders at my touch, his lips parting as he draws in a sharp breath.
“Nyx,” I choke, jostling his shoulders. “Nyx, sweetheart, you have to get up now. You have to wake up, and we have to take you home. We have to get you out of this rain. Please, wake up,” I beg, the words catching in my throat and splintering.
He shivers again but doesn’t rouse, and a strangled sob rips from my chest. He’s so small. So helpless. A whimper drags my attention to Boomerang sitting beside him. Her fur is soaked and spiky as she paws at the vines that cover Nyx’s feet, and another sob shakes my torso.
“Good girl,” I whisper, and as she stares at me with those wide, sad eyes, I know she never left his side.
Not like I did.
Choking on my regret, I reach for the plants that hold him there, ready to cut him free.
But they recede as if they understand my intention, exposing his legs sticking out from his soaked shorts.
His bare feet are drawn up as tightly as his body, curled up like they’re trying to disappear.
Seeing him like this, so vulnerable and fragile, breaks my heart straight down its center.
“Gods, I shouldn’t have left you. I shouldn’t have left…
I’m sorry, okay? I’m so sorry,” I ramble helplessly as I hook one arm under the crook of his knees and wedge the other underneath his back.
His body is too light, like he weighs nothing at all, as I stand and hug him against me.
He’s shivering, clothes plastered against his icy skin.
His eyes dart beneath his lids, faster and faster until they flutter open and meet mine, but I can tell he isn’t present.
He whispers in their language, something beautiful I don’t understand, then goes limp in my arms. The storm hasn’t let up, still pouring around us in sheets as I trek back down the path.
I move slower, stepping carefully with Boomerang by my side.
When we get closer to the village, she shoots ahead with a mournful howl. By the time the houses come into view, Elas is there waiting with rain dripping down his braids. “Everyone went out to look for you,” he says, his eyes growing wide when they land on the bundle in my arms.
“I’m taking him home,” I snarl, hugging him against my chest.
“Hey, Reyes. Easy, okay? No one is trying to take him from you.” He speaks in soothing tones, like he’s calming a spooked animal. My grip on Nyx tightens further. “Is he alright?”
“I don’t know.” Elas must catch the fear in my tone, because he nods and takes a half step back, clearing my path.
“I understand you don’t want others around, but you need help. You don’t have to do this alone. Why don’t I send Xeni?”
“August,” I insist as I pass him, but Elas catches my shoulder.
“Xeni knows what’s been done to him,” he says softly. “He’s the better choice.” A surge of rage crashes over me as I think about what Nyx has been through, but I push myself to hear the logic in Elas’s words.
“Fine,” I manage, then continue towards Nyx’s cottage without waiting for a response. I hesitate for a moment at his door.
I’ve never been inside, and inviting myself in feels like an invasion of privacy. My gaze moves across the path to my house, but he’s never come inside, either. He would wake up disoriented and scared, in a place where everything is unfamiliar. That alternative hurts worse.
The door creaks as I push it open, and my eyes sweep his nearly empty home.
Confused, suffocating emotion builds in my throat as I stare at the only furniture here.
A tiny bed is in the corner, wrapped in a holey blanket like someone’s dirty little secret.
A tinier table sits beside it, with a glass of water in the center.
There’s nothing else in the room.
No books or rugs, not even a pillow. There aren’t any plants aside from the vines that curtain his windows.
“Gods, Nyx,” I croak as I carry him over to the bed. Rainwater leaves a trail behind us, and I frown at the dripping fabric that covers his shivering form.