Chapter 32
Mei
Ican’t sleep. I stand in front of the window and remember the night sky. All those speckled flecks in the black that were other worlds. The night fabric of the world stretches like a blanket, covering us all. I remember my mother standing beside me. Her whispered words come back to me now.
“Stars exist in every sky, even when you can’t see them. Hope, wishes, dreams. That’s what my mother, your grandmother, believed. If you wish upon a star, if you send your prayers up to the universe and hope long enough and loud enough, it will come true.”
I reach up and trace the cool hardness of the mask. I can’t see anymore, but if her theory is correct, it doesn’t matter. My wishes would still come true, all I needed to do was just put them out there.
Have they come true? It feels like it. I have my shiver, my pack, my scent matches. We could be happy, we could find a way to exist here, together.
A dark and cynical voice whispers in my mind, coming from all the pain and horrors I saw in Nightmare.
I should take it off and reject them before they can hurt me again.
The thought of not seeing them again leaves me feeling frantic and panicked. Can a happy ever after even exist between us? How can it? Where would we live?
Lirin is lying on the couch, humming softly, and the song, light and joyful, is wrapping around me, teasing me into forgetting these thoughts.
I can almost hear the song beckoning. Come to me. Smile. Be happy. Let me make you forget.
Oh, how I want to.
Why did they try to kill me? That’s the thing that holds me back. The one thing that keeps coming up whenever I think I can give in. I can’t trust them. It’s why I hesitate and still think I should run.
Self-preservation at its finest. But I am very good at surviving.
What did I do that was so wrong they tried to kill me? Why? The answer matters more today than it did when it happened.
Deux was on that island with us. I protected them, they didn’t understand. Perhaps I should explain it. Perhaps I should ask them. Iron out all the confusion.
We could talk.
Everyone lies.
I’m better off alone.
No one will ever truly love you.
Those thoughts crash into my mind, sending jagged cracks up the happiness that has existed since the heat. I shift, curling my shoulders, my body coiling with the precursor to me bolting.
It felt like they cared.
There’s a difference between care and love, and if you can’t see the world, if you can’t live in it safely, how can you trust yourself with them? They’ve already tried to kill you once.
What happened to five kills and then leaving? My inner voice mocks.
What happened to finding our independence in a world that we could be safe in?
What happened to all those plans?
You risk it all on a shiver that has already tried to destroy you once.
But they won’t this time.
I believe in them.
I have faith in them. It was in their songs.
In the way Lirin kissed me, the way Reed sobbed into my neck during the heat.
It was Canto’s whispered words and the way Brio felt for me in the dark.
I can still remember the way Ronit would rise from the nest and disappear, his eyes blazing as he went out to protect us.
That is the feeling. Maybe it’s not love, but it’s enough to keep them from betraying me again.
Or maybe…it is love.
Wait…do I love them?
The thought evaporates all the doubts, leaving me reeling.
I stretch out my hand and rest it on the window. It’s cold, and that icy feeling seeps into my body.
Love? Is this love?
That thought makes me smile. Have I found love? Me? A monster who has been running for so long finally finds happiness?
I bite my lower lip, hiding my smile.
I can hear them moving in the house, talking and just doing normal people things. It could be our future. Kisses and soft touches, surrounded by the shiver. With an ocean at our front door and a city at our back. We could be happy here. We could have it all.
Kit lets out a soft hiss, and I smile wider.
I wouldn’t be alone, and that would be everything. It’s worth the risk. They are worth the risk.
They have changed me so much from when I met them again. All of these wants and hopes and desires are things I buried. I thought I was dead. They have resurrected me. I am alive for the first time since the day I first saved Lirin.
My fierce song.
“Will you sing for me, Lirin?” I murmur.
There’s a beat of silence. The room gets cold, so cold. Lirin stands up, I can just hear the whisper of his movement.
“Mei,” Lirin breathes softly.
It isn’t my name but the tone he’s using that fills me with icy dread.
“What’s wrong?” I murmur, but it comes out strangled.
The room pulses, and my breathing gets shallow as I try to feel the danger but come up blind. Again.
What is it? Where is it?
“Mei, step back away from the window.” Lirin sounds panicked.
The scent of his dragon fruit fear spears through the house, bitter, almost acrid. I flinch but still I don’t move. I’m not sure where to go or what to do, I need more information.
Suddenly, I know what’s on the other side of the glass. Suddenly, I know what evil has befallen us.
“Lirin,” I whisper.
“Strega! Move!” he shouts.
I try to move, but there’s a laugh that freezes my movements, a sound I recognise, one that comes straight from my deepest, darkest nightmares. It’s so close. Just a pane of glass away from me.
My knees get weak, but my senses fire up. Why can’t I feel him?
Walls, glass, a house, a home. The shiver.
All of the things I have come to appreciate most have stopped me sensing his approach. I was stupid. So stupid.
If we survive this, I won’t be stupid again.
“STREGA!” Lirin roars.
My hand is still pressed to the glass, but in my mind, I can see him smiling back at me from the other side. His fingers will be pressed to mine because that would amuse him.
“Rownee,” he whispers, I can hear him as clearly as if he whispered the words in my ear. “It’s been too long.”
There’s movement behind me, the roar of a dragon.
Leaf explodes towards me, snatching me up and away from the window. Ronit, Canto, Reed, and Brio charge towards us, their rage flooding the room.
The moment transforms into something dangerous.
The shiver are on the hunt.
But Deux is already here.