Chapter 10
The Pieces She Can't Hold
The dream started soft.
I was sitting in a field of something green—grass, maybe, or clover, or something else entirely.
The sky was blue, the way skies are supposed to be, and the sun was warm on my face, and I was laughing.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd laughed.
The sound felt strange in my throat, foreign, like a language I'd forgotten I spoke.
Rue was beside me.
Not dead. Not hollow-eyed. Not the woman who'd led me through an abandoned building and told me Gabriel was dead. She was young, and her hair was bright in the sunlight, and she was laughing too.
"You're so silly," she said.
"I'm not silly. I'm—"
"You're Bunny. Gabriel's favorite. The one he couldn't stop talking about."
"He talked about me?"
"All the time. You're all he talked about, in the end. You were the only one who mattered."
"What about you?"
"I was before. A stepping stone. A practice run."
She smiled, and it didn't look sad.
"But I don't mind. I'm glad he found you. I'm glad you made him happy."
"He's not happy. He's gone. He left me."
"He's waiting for you."
"Where?"
"Somewhere safe. Somewhere no one can find him. Somewhere only you can go."
"Take me there."
"I can't. You have to find your own way."
She reached out and touched my face. Her fingers were warm.
"But he's waiting. He's always been waiting. He'll always be waiting."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
The dream shifted.
I was standing in a room I didn't recognize. White walls. No windows. A single chair in the center of the floor, facing away from me.
Rue was in the chair.
Not laughing now.
Not smiling.
Her eyes were open, but they weren't looking at anything.
Her throat was bruised.
Her hands were limp.
The blood was everywhere—on the floor, on the walls, on my hands, on my clothes, on my face.
"Rue?"
No answer.
"Rue, can you hear me?"
No answer.
There would never be an answer.
She was dead.
And I had killed her.
"You said he was waiting."
No answer.
"You said he was safe."
No answer.
"You said—"
I looked down at my hands, and they were red, and the blood was warm, and I couldn't remember deciding.
I couldn't remember anything.
"Rue—"
Her face was shifting.
Blonde.
Brown.
Red.
Faces I didn't recognize.
Faces I did.
Batch 39.
The girl who wasn't there.
The woman in the mirror.
Me.
I was looking down at my own face.
Pale. Still. Eyes open, but not looking at anything.
"You're dead."
My voice, coming from somewhere else.
"You've been dead for a long time."
"You just didn't know it."
I woke up screaming.
The sound tore out of my throat before I could stop it, raw and animal, the scream of something that had been trapped for too long. My hands were clutching the blanket, twisting the fabric, pulling it tight around my shoulders like a shield.
The back room.
The couch.
The bar.
Matt.
He was there. Standing in the doorway, his expression careful, his hands loose at his sides.
"Bunny."
His voice was calm.
"Bunny, you're safe. You're in the back room. You're safe."
"I killed her."
The words came out before I could stop them.
"I killed her, and I don't remember, and she said he was waiting, and now she's dead, and I don't—"
"Breathe."
He crossed the room and knelt in front of me. Not touching. Just present.
"Breathe, Bunny. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Slow."
"I can't—"
"Yes, you can. You're doing it right now. Just keep going."
I breathed. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. The air was warm and smelled like coffee and something else—something clean, something that reminded me of soap.
"That's it. Keep going."
I breathed until the screaming stopped. Until the shaking stopped. Until my hands unclenched from the blanket and my heart stopped trying to escape my chest.
"Better?"
"A little."
"Good."
He stood up and walked to the kitchenette. I heard water running, a kettle being filled, the click of a stove being lit.
"Tea. Chamomile. It'll help you sleep."
"I don't want to sleep."
"I know. But you need to."
He brought the mug to me, careful not to get too close, and set it on the table beside the couch.
"Drink it slowly. Small sips."
"Matt."
"Yeah?"
"Aren't you going to ask me what I meant? About killing someone?"
"Do you want me to ask?"
"I don't know."
"Then I won't."
He sat in the chair across from me, the same chair he'd sat in before, not too close, not too far.
"When you're ready to talk, I'll listen. Until then, I'll just... be here."
"Why?"
"Because everyone needs someone to be there. Even when they don't know how to ask for it."
The tea was warm.
I drank it slowly, small sips, the way he'd told me to. The chamomile was sweet, honeyed, and it settled in my stomach like something soft.
Matt didn't push.
He sat in his chair and read a newspaper—an actual newspaper, the kind with pages that rustled when he turned them—and he didn't look at me, not directly, not in a way that made me feel watched.
"Matt."
"Yeah?"
"I don't have any clothes. Just the ones I'm wearing."
He looked up from his newspaper.
"The ones with the blood?"
"Yes."
"We should get you some new ones."
"I don't have any money."
"I'll front you. You can pay me back out of your tips."
"I don't know what kind of clothes to get."
He folded his newspaper and set it aside.
"Then we'll figure it out together."
The mall was loud.
I hadn't been to a mall in years—or maybe I'd never been to a mall, or maybe I'd been to a hundred malls, in a hundred different cities, and I just didn't remember.
The lights were too bright. The people were too many.
The sounds were everywhere—music, voices, the beeping of registers, the rumble of escalators.
Matt walked beside me.
Not touching. Not hurrying. Just present.
"Where do you want to start?"
"I don't know."
"Clothes. That's why we're here. Let's start with clothes."
He led me to a store at the end of the mall. The mannequins in the window were wearing dresses—soft dresses, the kind that looked like they'd be comfortable, the kind that didn't have bloodstains on them.
"In you go. I'll be right outside."
"You're not coming in?"
"I don't think I'm the target audience."
He smiled, and it was almost warm.
"Take your time. Pick whatever you like. I'll handle the cashier."
The dresses were soft.
I walked through the racks, my fingers trailing over the fabric. Cotton. Silk. Something that might have been linen. Colors I hadn't seen in weeks—pale pink, butter yellow, soft lavender, the blue of a sky I barely remembered.
I picked up a dress.
Pale pink. Short sleeves. A hem that would hit mid-thigh.
It looked like something Gabriel would have chosen.
Or maybe something I would have chosen for myself, before I forgot how to choose.
I picked up another.
Yellow. Tiny flowers embroidered along the hem.
It looked like something that would make me feel pretty.
I hadn't felt pretty in a long time.
I picked up a third.
White. Lace trim. A sash that tied in the back.
It looked like something a girl would wear to a party.
I'd never been to a party.
Not that I could remember.
I carried the dresses to the front of the store, and Matt was there, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Find everything you need?"
"I think so."
"Good."
He took the dresses from me and set them on the counter, and the cashier—a young woman with purple hair and a nose ring—rang them up without comment.
"Is that everything?"
I looked at the display behind the counter. Hair bows. Dozens of them, in every color, attached to cards with little metal clips.
"And those."
I pointed.
"The bows?"
"Yes."
Matt looked at the bows, then at me, then back at the bows.
"How many?"
"All of them."
He didn't argue. He just nodded at the cashier, and she swept the bows into a bag, and Matt paid with a card that didn't have my name on it.
The toy store was across from the dress store.
I saw it while we were walking back to the entrance—a window full of stuffed animals, arranged in a rainbow of fur and fabric. There were bears and bunnies and cats and dogs, and in the center, sitting on a little chair, was a bear.
Brown. Soft. With button eyes and a stitched smile.
I stopped walking.
"Bunny?"
Matt's voice, from somewhere behind me.
"You okay?"
"I want the bear."
"The bear?"
"The one in the window. The brown one. With the button eyes."
He looked at the bear. Looked at me. Looked back at the bear.
"Okay."
He walked into the store without another word, and I watched through the window as he approached the display, lifted the bear from its chair, and carried it to the register.
He paid with the same card, and the cashier wrapped the bear in tissue paper and placed it in a bag, and Matt carried the bag back to me.
"Here."
He held it out.
"For you."
I took the bag. The tissue paper rustled. The bear was soft, softer than anything I'd touched in weeks, and I held it against my chest and felt something loosen in my ribcage.
"What are you going to name it?"
"I don't know."
"You'll think of something."
We walked back to the car, and I held the bear the whole way, and Matt didn't say anything about the tears that were streaming down my face.
The back room looked different when we returned.
The couch was still there. The blanket was still there. The mug from this morning was still on the table, empty now, a ring of tea staining the bottom.
Matt set the bags on the floor.
"You should try on the dresses. Make sure they fit."
"They'll fit."
"How do you know?"
"I just know."
I didn't know how to explain it. But the dresses looked like they'd been made for me—the same way the pink room had felt like it had been made for me, the same way Gabriel's hands had felt like they'd been made for me, the same way every cage I'd ever been in had felt like it had been made to hold exactly me.
Matt left me alone to change.
I pulled off my bloodstained clothes—the jeans, the sweater, the boots—and let them fall to the floor. The pink dress slid over my head like water, settling against my skin, soft and cool and clean.
I looked at my reflection in the window.
The glass was dark, but I could see her—the woman I was becoming. Pale. Hollow-eyed. Her hair tangled around her shoulders, her lips cracked from dehydration, her hands still stained red-brown in the creases.
But the dress was pretty.
And the bear was soft.
And Matt was in the other room, reading his newspaper, not asking questions, not calling the police, not looking at me like I was a monster.
"Bunny."
Matt's voice, from the other side of the door.
"You okay in there?"
"I'm okay."
"The dresses fit?"
"They fit."
"Good."
A pause.
"There's soup when you're ready. And coffee. And a clean towel if you want to wash your face."
"Thank you, Matt."
"Don't thank me yet. You haven't seen the basement."
I smiled.
It was small. It was fragile. It was the first smile I'd worn in weeks.
But it was real.
I washed my face in the small bathroom behind the bar.
The water was cold, and I splashed it on my cheeks, my forehead, the back of my neck. The towel was clean and white, and when I dried my face, there was no blood on it.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror.
The woman staring back was still a stranger.
But she was starting to look familiar.
The dress helped.
The bear helped.
Matt helped.
For the first time in weeks, I felt like I might be able to keep going.
Not because I was strong.
Not because I was brave.
Because someone had given me a chance.
And I wasn't ready to waste it.
"Daddy."
The whisper was soft.
"Daddy, I found a place. I found someone who doesn't ask questions. I found a job."
"I'm not giving up."
"I'm still hunting for you."
"But I need to rest first."
"I hope you understand."
"I hope you're not angry."
"I hope you're still waiting for me."
No answer.
There was never an answer.
But for the first time in weeks, the silence didn't feel like abandonment.
It felt like permission.
I walked back to the back room, and Matt was there with the soup and the coffee, and I sat on the couch with the blanket around my shoulders and the bear in my lap, and I ate and drank and let someone take care of me.
The stranger in the window.
She was starting to look familiar.
Maybe, eventually, she'd start to look like me.