Covering her whole.
Pain splintered through my side, but I just curled myself tighter around her as the horror spread over us. The dust and debris and terror.
“Fuck. Oh God. Penny.” Lyrik’s voice cut through the dense, ominous air, but the only thing I could really hear were the screams that Mia had released.
Lyrik tried to pry my arm away.
I hung on tighter, clutching her in my hold, my mouth murmuring into the wisps of her hair that smelled like chlorine and sun and exhaust. “Are you hurt? Penny, are you hurt? Can you hear me?”
The fragile body tucked against me began to shake.
Vibrating.
Shivering.
Trembling.
Alive.
Relief tore through me with the force of a volcanic eruption, an explosion that I was certain would leave the deepest crater in the middle of me. Blowing something open that shouldn’t have been released.
“Penny,” I muttered, slowly shifting so all my weight wasn’t on her while keeping her still to make sure I didn’t injure her more. “Penny. Tell me if you’re injured. Where it hurts. Please.”
A sob ripped from her, a reverberation that ricocheted through my chest, her shaking body turning into an all-out earthquake. Her fingers curled into my shirt. Desperation as she cried out.
The sticky heat of blood seeped into my jeans.
Fear clamored. Hatred rushed.
“It’s okay, Penny. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
I eased onto my butt, still clinging to her, refusing to let her move a bone or a muscle or a cell. Arms aching with the need to keep her whole.
Real and intact.
Lyrik hovered over us, freaking the fuck out, a feeling I totally respected and got. “Penny. Are you okay? Tell me if you’re hurt? Oh, God, oh God.” He shot back upright. “Someone call an ambulance,” he shouted, his roar of agony banging through the air.
Could feel the disordered energy whipping around us. Whirring and twisting and gaining speed.
But the only call I could feel was the woman.
The angel in the attic. I hugged her child, unable to let go even though I knew I had to.
That she wasn’t mine.
That she never could be.
My face lifted just a fraction, just enough so that my gaze could crawl through the dust and debris to the woman who was on her hands and knees. Tamar had taken Greyson from her, trying to calm down the toddler who was wailing.
Or maybe it was the sound of his mother coming apart.
Torment clutched my spirit, my arms locked around Penny as I met the affliction in Mia’s eyes. An affliction I knew too well. One that I could understand in a way that I wanted to scrape from my consciousness.
Mia crawled toward us, like she no longer had the capacity to stand, her spirit rushing out ahead of her.
Slamming me.
Soul first.
She was sobbing out loud by the time she made it to us, the woman a hurricane, a tornado that blew and screamed and howled. Her fingers searched, digging through the shield that I had made, her voice a desperate chant.
“Penny. Penny. Penny.”
The little girl cried more, an outburst of fear at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“Penny, oh my God, my baby girl. Penny.” Mia crawled the rest of the way into the well of my lap, wrapping her arms around Penny just as tight. She buried her face in my arm, tears soaking my skin. “Penny.”
A siren screamed from where it had pulled out from the station just a quarter of a mile up the street.
Took only a minute or two before the ground vibrated with the pound of heavy footsteps. Voices warbled as they broke through the atmosphere.
The child was pried from my arms, and I fumbled back, no longer able to breathe.
I sat in the middle of the street.
Knocked on my ass.
Watching the frantic scene.
Praying I hadn’t been too late.
Please, God, don’t let me have been too late.
I couldn’t handle it this time. Not if I failed again.* * *Muttered, distorted voices filtered from the room and out into the darkened hall. Tufts of thready, yellowed light seeped out through the crack in the door, casting shadows onto the wall of glass behind me.
Night pressed in, as fierce as the storm that built overhead.
Foreboding clouds rumbled where they slowly crept over the house. Branches on the trees whipping like mad.
Angry. Crying their outrage.
I scrubbed my palms over my face, praying it would stand the chance to break up the disorder.
Tearing me to shreds.
Cutting me to pieces.
Tatters getting caught up in the destructive gusts of wind.
Memories too close and too clear and coming at me too fast.
“I will never let anyone hurt you. Do you understand? I will die first.”
“Please, let’s just . . . go. Get away from here.”
I set both hands on her cheeks. “Soon, Maddie, soon.”
Sickness clawed across my flesh, sprouting from the pebbles of pavement that had embedded in my skin.