Nate went across to her. Downstairs, there were sounds of people moving around, voices, laughter. And the scent of freshly baking Toll House cookies. He wished he could bring that life up here, up to Elyn.
Her silver eyes met his in the glass. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. He knew exactly what she was thinking.
He cleared his throat. “You know, the hardest thing for me when I got out was trusting I was going to stay out. That I actually was where I was standing. It was like at any moment I was going to get pulled back. I didn’t trust reality.”
Elyn turned to him, her eyes wide. “Wherever were you held?”
“Somewhere I didn’t want be.” He had to look away. “It’s not important where. I just know how hard it is for you right now. And it gets better, I promise.”
When he could manage to meet her eyes, he hoped she would open up and talk about her story, even though he feared the details.
“Are you safe now?” she whispered.
He nodded. “Yes. And so are you.”
She turned back to the mirror. “I am lost. I thought . . . I would be free, but I am lost.”
“I know and I’m so sorry. I’ve been where you are and it sucks.”
“Tell me.”
“I, ah, I . . . can’t.” He was not going to lose it in front of her. And somehow, talking about the lab was going to make him feel more naked than if he actually were naked. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”
Elyn drew in a deep breath. Then she reached across the space between them and took his hand. As she closed her eyes, he couldn’t believe she was touching him—
The bolt of electricity flashed through his body, and in the aftermath, he was immobile and totally numb, yet still standing. Then came the fluttering. At first, he thought it was something physical, but then he realized what was happening was in his brain. It was as if his thoughts were being shuffled, a deck of cards.
And then Elyn gasped.
In the midst of his strange fugue state, Nate focused on her eyes as they widened and the color drained out of her face. Tears formed and fell onto her cheeks, flowing down and dropping off the sides of her jaw. The shaking came after that, her mouth parting with the lower lip starting to tremble. With her free hand, she covered her—
Elyn dropped her hold on him and took a stumbling step back, her hip banging into the sink.
As the numb feeling drained out of Nate’s feet, sure as if it were a tangible level of some kind of liquid, he was aware of a great shame flooding into his void.
It turned out that however painful the lab had been, having Elyn horrified by him was a worse agony.
Clearing his throat, he focused on the boxes out in her room. “Well, I’ll just get started on these.”
Turning away from her, he—
Elyn jumped in front and embraced him so hard, he had no breath in his lungs.
“Oh . . . Nate,” she said in a voice that cracked. “Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe. What they did to you. To your mahmen. They hurt you.”
Nate was so shocked by the contact, by her scent, by her . . . everything . . . that the content of her words didn’t register. But then he caught up with everything.
Her hands were smoothing over his back. “I am so sorry.”
Nate wanted to hold her back. So he did—but things went further than he intended. He dropped his head onto her shoulder, opened up the internal lockbox he kept his horrible memories in . . . and went into his pain.
It had been a while since he had done that, the rhythm of his nights and days, the normalcy of life with Sarah and Murhder, obscuring his past—and thank fuck for it. Yet Elyn called that which he staunchly ignored to the forefront.
And somehow, though it was agony, her sympathy eased him in ways no amount of therapy with Mrs. Mary had.
Down on the first floor, people kept talking, and laughing, and making cookies.
Up in Elyn’s bathroom, the world stopped as two broken people became whole again. Through the magic of not being alone.
Sahvage put his shirt on the sink counter and focused on Mae. She was standing on the far side of the kitchen table, one hand gripping the gun he’d gotten for her, the other floating in the breeze like it was looking for something to do.
And what do you know, he had some suggestions for that—and she was clearly open to them: Her delicious scent gave her away. Her eyes, as they traveled down his bare chest, gave her away. The way she breathed . . . gave her away.