“Try to destroy it. Let it destroy you.” He shakes his head, sympathy softening his expression. “I know it’s hard. I know you want to go to that place, but you can’t.” Pushing away from the door, he steps toward me. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Six months ago, I would have brushed him off. Told him to fuck off, told him that I was fine. Six months ago, I would have let myself slip into that numb little place where nothing mattered because nothing hurt. Where there wasn’t color or life or love or Sinners or Max. But I’m not fucking fine, and if he trusts me…
I have to show him that I trust him.
“Hey. Come here,” he murmurs, catching my free hand and pulling me into his arms. “Talk to me.”
I suck in a breath, looking at the crimson painting again. The other paintings around the room are almost as hard to look at, although not all of them roil with the same raw pain.
“I hate my art,” I say honestly, brutally. It comes out like a croak, painful to admit out loud. “I hate what it’s become.”
“Why do you hate it?” He reaches up, brushing away a strand of blue hair from my face.
I tell him everything I was feeling as he walked in—how it sucks that something that was once an escape for me has become a prison. Not that I hate being an artist, not really, but I hate that this is me. I hate that all the fucked up images on those canvases represent the heart of me. That those feelings are inside of me.
Gray listens intently, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to my shoulder when I’m finished.
“I think you’re looking at it the wrong way, Sparrow,” he says, and my throat constricts a little, a painful, sharp bite of feeling. “I know we’re supposed to look at art and feel as if we’re getting a glimpse into the soul of the artist. But I don’t think it’s quite so simple. These paintings don’t represent who you are. They represent who you were, and by putting them on canvas, you’re letting the poison bleed out of your soul, clearing the way for your future. It’s making you new, so that when this is all over, it will truly be all over.”
“How can you…” I bite my lip, meeting his smoldering gaze. “How can you see it like that?”
“Because I see you,” he says simply. “I see you for who you are. Perfect, kind, caring, funny.” He gestures to the paintings around us. “And even though this is all a part of you right now, a fucked up, shitty part of you that you have to work through, it isn’t who you are. It doesn’t have to define you or drag you down.”
A single tear manages to escape my eye, rolling down my cheek, but before I can brush it away, he’s leaning forward and kissing the watery trail, ending with a gentle press of his lips to my own.
When he pulls away, his voice is hoarse. “I let the pain fester after Beth died,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to see you do that. I’m glad you’re letting it out, whether it’s painting or talking to me or Declan or Elias. Don’t escape into yourself, okay, Sparrow? You have to stay with me.”
16
I’m ten years old again, in the bunker. My limbs are frail and thin, my skin is pale. I’ve grown up in the bunker—or at least, the bunker is all I know anymore, all I remember.
The longer I sit in this quiet place, the less I remember of my life before. Of my parents, and of my old house. Of the big tree in our backyard. Of freedom.
I’ve tried to keep it in my head, but if I don’t get out of here soon, it’ll all be gone. They try to make it nice down here, like they’re trying to convince me it’ll all be okay. That I belong here and shouldn’t want to leave.
But they’re liars. I know they are.
My arms are bruised, my legs are skimmed with scratches. I put up a fight last time the little boy came down here, and I paid the price for it. But the aches and pains in my body don’t matter anymore, because I’ve found a way out of here. A way to escape.
Escape.
That single, simple word urges me on. The bunker is all I’ve known for so long, but unlike the other girl, I hate it here. That’s why I’m escaping, why I’m going to find my way to that tiny opening in the wall.
But something makes me stop when I reach the door. I know I’m wasting precious seconds, seconds that could mean my life or death, but I stop and look back at my companion—another little girl, more limp and frail than me, maybe my own age. We both look small, too small to be almost eleven. She looks barely seven or eight. I know I don’t look much better.
As if she knows I’m watching, she looks up. Then she frowns, her arms crossed around her body.
“You need to come with me,” I whisper. My voice is too weak, too hoarse to be any louder. “We can get out together. We’ll be free.”
She blinks.
“Don’t you want to be free?” I plead, looking at the door again. Seconds. I have seconds, but I can’t leave her behind. “Remember what it’s like to be free?”
I don’t.
She shakes her head.
“Please, Reagan.” I croak her name out. “You have to come with me. I’ll keep you safe, we’ll get out.”