Adrien #3
And now it’s hers. Of course it is.
A smile slips out of me unintentionally. I flick the cigarette away, then curse under my breath, turn around and retrieve it immediately. She hates littering.
Unfortunately, it’s not like we could ever stay here, anyway. It’s only temporary. Until we find old Devereaux and finish what should’ve been finished a long time ago.
Still, it feels good to have something we built and something solid. I worked my ass off on this manor. I always imagined she’d like it. Especially the way the land opens up around it—miles of forest swallowing the horizon.
In the early mornings, the fog rolls in so thick it wraps the trees like something alive. It looks unreal. Like a vampire movie waiting for a soundtrack.
I take a few slow steps closer to the balcony.
I know I shouldn’t.
My brain, however, is already several steps ahead, mapping the climb like muscle memory never left.
Okay.
Fuck it.
I place my hand against the old stone, the cold biting through my skin as I whisper a silent prayer that it won’t betray me.
There’s no gutter, no ivy, and no architectural mercy this time.
But the surface is weathered and scarred with shallow crevices and uneven edges enough to hold if I trust it.
And the balcony isn’t nearly as high as the one at the Varner mansion used to be.
Progress.
I can’t believe this is my own house and I’m still climbing into her room like I’m fourteen years old and breaking curfew. The irony is almost impressive. Forbidden to enter her room once again. Different house, same rules.
Jesus. Rick Varner is probably laughing in his grave right now.
I move up. No wide ledges, no decorative shortcuts, just raw masonry and gravity patiently waiting for a mistake while my body loudly disagrees with every decision I’ve made today.
The bullet wound re-stitched twice—screaming. The knife wound in my leg from my lovely Selvaggia—screaming too.
I grit my teeth and haul myself through the last stretch, fingers finally catching the solid railing. The stone lip bites into my skin as I pull, scrape, swear under my breath, then swing my weight over it.
And suddenly I’m there.
That was… easier than I expected.
I straighten, my heart hammering as I let out a quiet, victorious exhale.
The doors are wide open, exactly the way she likes it. No glass between her and the night. I stand there, unwilling to move, staring into the room, acutely aware that every single thing I’m doing right now goes directly against what the psychiatrist told me.
Stabilizing presence. Predictable, consistent, and safe.
To be fair, this is relatively predictable for me.
The moment I step inside, my eyes find her. A wave of relief finally eases the desolation in my chest.
She’s sleeping, as Kiara said.
I walk toward the bed warily, then stop, standing over her like an absolute creep that I am.
The full moon spills enough light across the room to soften her features, silvering her skin, catching on the curve of her cheek and the line of her lashes.
Her pupils are moving beneath her closed lids frantically and restless, like her mind never learned how to rest.
I’d give anything to know what’s happening in there.
If someone invented a pill that would let me step inside her mind, I’d take it without hesitation right now, no warnings read.
I wouldn’t go in to clean the mess or fix it or rearrange things. I’d go in to understand it, to accept it and then carry it back with me so she wouldn’t have to hold it alone and so we could be crazy together—properly and honestly, without pretending one of us is standing on solid ground.
She’s wearing my T-shirt. I insisted on that so her brain can register me even though I’m not here.
Maybe it doesn’t work like that. Maybe that’s not how psychosis or trauma or memory function at all.
But I need to try everything. Anything that might anchor me somewhere in her senses, anything that might sneak me back in before I figure out how to enter her psychosis myself.
The psychiatrist was wrong about one thing. I don’t want to fix her. I just want her to feel safe again, to take me back. And I don’t care whether that means pulling her back into reality or pushing myself into her illusion. I’ll happily become mad. I’m already halfway there anyway.
Her long white hair cascades across the pillow, spilling down the bed. In the moonlight it looks silver and unreal, like it doesn’t quite belong to the same world as the rest of her. I feel my mouth curve into a smirk, because it makes her look like some dragon-fighting fantasy character.
Yeah. I like it.
She’s lying on her back, facing the open balcony doors, arms spread carelessly through the sheets. She’s crumpled toward the edge of the mattress, leaving the other side completely empty.
No.
No, no, no.
Stop it, brain.
Don’t fucking move. I just wanted to see her, that’s it.
That’s it. That’s it. That’s it.
Her fingers twitch now and then, with small, involuntary movements, like the dreams she’s trapped in are leaking through the cracks and tugging at her body.
My own eyelids start to feel heavy. As if, after nearly forty hours without sleep, my body suddenly decided this—this exact moment—is when it’s finally safe to shut down.
Right here.
What a coincidence.
Well. I should listen to my body, right? That’s what all the experts say.
I circle the bed quietly, making sure not to make a sound, and kick off my boots before lying down on the empty side. Far away from her. Intentionally so. The bed is huge, and with me clinging to the edge, there’s still enough space between us to fit another low self-control freak.
This is still a stabilizing presence. Predictable. Safe.
Totally.
I can’t stop watching.
Every breath, every flutter of her eyelids. I’m trying to hypnotize the bond between us to let me inside the dream of hers, so I can be there and hold her through it.
I close my eyes.
My heart is beating so hard I’m half-convinced it’s loud enough to wake her, but somehow, impossibly, my body gives in. The tension loosens its grip after a while. The exhaustion wins. And for the first time in what feels like forever, I fall into a deep, long-overdue sleep.