15. Slow To Anger And Great In Power

15. Slow To Anger And Great In Power

Skylenna

It’s been nearly two weekssince Fun House Night.

Nearly two weeks without food.

The kitchen delivered dead rats on a platter. Dessin kept his cool. Niles woke up howling in pain from his burns or from a nightmare about the fire. He stopped abruptly due to Marilynn somehow soothing him back to sleep. Warrose got into another fight in the showers. Ruth chewed him out for an hour about making things worse.

And my body has been healing.

Slowly.

But it’s hard without food.

Dessin has been grilling Helga Bee about everything she knows regarding the layout of the prison. About the security measures they must take to keep prisoners inside. She only knows about the exterior from seeing it herself, and some rumors she’s heard about the security. The prison is the tallest landmark in Vexamen. Three connecting towers. The only way up or down is by rock climbing. Soldiers that arrive every week for Fun House Nights have special equipment, a pulley system, that allows them to easily scale the length until they reach an entrance. But those platforms are crawling with sentinels.

Helga Bee says all possible exits are guarded by swamp dawpers. Cousins of night dawpers. Gangly creatures that can sniff out hot organs a mile away. They devour their prey down to the bone, one lick of their tongues, and their saliva eats right through your skin.

But without a way to remove the device in our ears, we’re sitting ducks.

“I really hate to say anything nice about Demechnef, but shit, I really miss their feather beds!” Niles sighs dramatically, leaning his head against his cage as we get settled in to go to sleep.

“Me, too,” Ruth groans.

Dessin nudges me through the bars that separate us. The circles under his eyes are like smoky bruises, deep and shadowed. I reach out to touch them, running my fingers across his prominent cheekbones.

“You’re not sleeping,” I say sadly. It’s not a question. I know how his system works. When he’s in a high-stress environment, his entire way of existing, as well as that of the other alters, is thrown into a whirlwind of survival mode. Meaning insomnia, migraines, vomiting, depression. I can see it all on his face, no matter how hard he tries to hide it from me.

“I’m okay.”

“Dessin…”

“Baby, I survived the asylum for four years. I’m fine.” But his warm mahogany eyes are so tired, so weak. My heart cracks down the middle.

“What can I do?” I whisper.

He reaches his brawny arm through the bars, his hand cupping the side of my face. I lean into his heat, and my eyes close on instinct.

“This,” he murmurs, fingers massaging the side of my head. “I’m dying to touch you.”

His deep voice chases away the chill in my bones, drawing heat from my center. I open my mouth to suck more oxygen into my lungs.

“If I slip my fingers between your legs, will you clench around me? Just once?” he asks with dark arousal glazing over his eyes.

I bite my tongue to keep from moaning. We have zero privacy here. But God, the sexual tension has been building like a shaken bottle of champagne.

I nod eagerly. Just one touch, quietly, discreetly.

Dessin sits up quickly, suddenly wide awake. He angles his hand between my legs, grazing the back of his finger along my soaking wet slit. I squirm at the contact, and he flexes his jaw, closing his eyes in silent euphoria.

“I should be fucking you every day,” he utters, pulling his finger away to see how it glistens in the glowing light of the flickering bulbs.

“Yes.”

“You should be sitting on my face to wake me up every morning,” he adds, blacking out at the thought.

I let out a quiet hum. Low enough to avoid our friends hearing me.

The corners of his mouth tick upward. He prods my entrance with two fingers, unable to fit them both in. We exhale in unison.

“Aquarus told me about your moment with him.”

I look up at his brooding face, clenched jaw, and dilated pupils.

“And?” I inquire.

“I got jealous.”

I blink in surprise. My first night with Greystone, Dessin told me he wouldn’t get jealous. That it was different being with alters.

“It made my dick so hard,” he whispers, then begins circling the ring of my ass with another finger. “I wanted to fuck the thought of him right out of you.”

“But you said—”

“I know what I said.” He uses the arousal from my throbbing pussy to lubricate my ass. “And I know I’m contradicting myself. But now I want to claim you. Show him you’re mine.”

I choke on a gasp as he eases his fingers inside both of my holes. A pulse runs rampant in my core, building a single flame of desire into a beastly inferno.

“I’d give anything to taste you right now, baby.” He sinks his middle finger in my ass and his thumb in my quivering pussy. My back is facing our friends, and it’s like we’re all alone, hiding in the shadows of our cage.

My head falls back at the way his fingers hook.

“I love when you fill all of my holes.”

Dessin’s eyes shudder with fire and madness. “Careful,” he grits through clenched teeth.

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll traumatize our friends by fucking you through these bars.”

My eyes roll back in my head, my cunt flutters with insatiable need, and I’m close to seeing stars. How can we have such an attraction through all of this hell? It’s like a magic curse between us. An invisible bond that can’t be broken.

Our friends bicker loudly behind us, cackling like little hens. It’s the perfect amount of noise for what I feel is rising in my lower belly.

“Dessin?”

“Yes, baby?” He saws his large fingers inside me, curving his movements to hit the perfect spot. My mouth falls open as I arch against the bars. I’m tingling, throbbing, undulating against the bars for more of him. Crazed. Feral. An addict for the hard lines of his abdomen, the mountain of muscle in his arms and chest. My mouth waters at the idea of pleasing him like an obedient, good girl.

“If I come right now, will you keep me quiet?” I ask, breathy and unstable.

Dessin drops his head with an anguished exhale, like my words have officially defeated him. He nods, unable to give me verbal confirmation.

“Do you love me, Dessin?” I ask, barely a whisper, barely a sound at all.

“Yes,” he mouths, his breath continuing to huff over me. “I love you so much, it’s fucking painful to be separated by these bars.”

I’m careful not to move to tip the others off, but I want to grind against his hand so bad that my thighs twitch.

“Are you going to marry me one day?”

His stormy expression lightens a little. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”

“And—”

“And I’ll fill you full of my come until it’s dripping down your thighs for days,” he growls, moving his fingers faster, harder, bruising me with pleasure. “Until there’s a baby in your belly.”

My climax explodes around me. An idyllic blast in my lower half. A sense of floating, dreaming, flying. Dessin’s hand flies over my mouth to silence any sound that comes close to bursting from my lips. As the jolts of my desire subside, I look down at the long bulge in his pants.

“My turn,” I purr. But a noisy splash of liquid hitting the floor pivots our attention away from each other.

“Are you alright?” Niles asks in alarm.

Another splash, and I’m standing up to see what’s going on.

Marilynn is hunched over, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. A puddle of bile spreads across her cage, surrounding her. She leans back against her bars with a thud, wincing as she coughs.

“Hey, talk to me,” Niles pleads.

But she doesn’t respond, only closes her eyes and lightly dabs at the sweat beading across her pale brow.

We’re all standing now.

“Marilynn?” Ruth asks.

“Give me a damn minute,” Marilynn groans quietly. “I’m just—processing.”

It’s been too long since we’ve eaten. We’re all weak and sickly. Is this the beginning of the symptoms you get before death?

“It’s because she hasn’t eaten,” Dessin finally clarifies. “If we don’t get some form of food in us, we’re all going to start having terminal indicators until we starve to death.”

Marilynn shakes her head.

“Tomorrow, we have to—”

“You’re all about to trust me a lot less,” Marilynn announces, her silky voice resounding over Dessin’s.

“Huh?” Niles cocks his head back. “What’s going on?”

“I’m late.” Her eyes are glassy, tired, heavy.

Late…Late! “Do you mean…”

“I’ve missed a period.”

“That could be a result of starvation,” Dessin says, though his eyes are narrowing suspiciously.

“It’s not from starvation. I had sex with Aurick before we left.”

“Come again?” Niles blurts out.

My jaw hangs from my face like a decaying branch on a tree. I knew it. I fucking knew we couldn’t trust her. If she slept with Aurick…well, what does that even mean? Is she in love with him? Did he send her to spy on us?

“Why?” Warrose asks in disgust.

“She was engaged to him at one point…” Ruth points out.

So she is still in love with him.

“I’ve heard the stories,” she declares in a frigid tone. Cold edges, like she’s trying to reign in her frustration. “We grew up hearing about the adventures you all have had.”

Her point?

I look over my shoulder at Dessin. He’s stiff, watching her like a predator gathering intel on his prey.

“And I’ve—I’ve only heard of myself mentioned in the prophecies a couple of times. This is one of them. It’s something I had to do.” Her honeyed voice wavers, tapering off as she tries to tie her emotions down.

“Hold on a second,” I interrupt with a disbelieving laugh. “You’re telling me it was in a prophecy that you fuck Aurick once after returning and get pregnant?”

Is anyone buying this?

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” she breathes, meeting my eyes with venom and resentment.

I bristle with anger. “The man who hit me. Who tricked me into his home. Who—”

“I know who he is! I know what he’s done!” Her voice blasts through the prison in a fit of indignation. “You think you were his only victim? I lived under the roof of Vlademur Demechnef! I suffered through their games, their hot tempers, their distaste of strong women. All for a fucking bedtime story told to me since I was a small child. You think I wanted this? To live my life as a spy? Never understanding who I really am? All for an epic tale that may or may not come true?”

I’m not sure where to look. I have a wandering gaze that won’t settle. We haven’t known Marilynn long, but she’s hardly seemed like the type to raise her voice. And here she is, wiping snot and tears from her face. That pale complexion now rosy from her outburst.

Niles breaks the silence by clearing his throat. “Why did the prophecy say for you to sleep with him? What was the reason?”

“If I say it out loud, it may never happen. And then I’ll have done it for nothing.”

“Not nothing.” Ruth kneels to be at eye level with Marilynn. “Regardless of the reason, you’re having a baby. Now eating for two!”

Ruth’s harmless statements sends a surge of devastation through us all. The air shifts as we all realize…it’s not just us anymore that’s being starved.

It’s a baby, too.

The group breaks out in a storm of horror.

“We’ll get you something to eat!”

“Should we do a kitchen heist?”

“Maybe I should talk to Kaspias again…”

My mouth is dry and cottony, and I can’t seem to think of a logical way around this. It’s true, no matter the cost, we need to find a way to get Marilynn food. But how are we going to manage that without getting strikes to a sentence? The goal is to feed her and her baby. The cost could be a Vex-Reaping for one of us.

I rotate on my heels to see Dessin brooding in the shadows, arms crossed, and an unreadable expression on his face. It’s not common anymore for me to have trouble reading him. But right now, I have no idea what he’s thinking.

“Dessin?”

His eyes are like death warmed up as they glide to me. It’s in the tendrils of smoke that wrap around his irises, the corruption that bubbles like lava, that I take a step back, allowing him to process whatever is working itself out in his mind.

“Let’s sleep on it,” I suggest loud enough to break up their subtle rise in volume. “We’re all exhausted and hungry, and now we have a big problem to solve. Tomorrow we’ll figure it out.”

They seem to agree, getting settled in. Niles has lost all of the gilded color in his face, though I’m not sure if that’s due to the recent news or his weakening state. He stares off into the dim lighting of the hallway, getting lost in his thoughts.

“Help us,”I ask the woman that lingers in my mind.

After several seconds, I twist my fingers together, worrying she might be gone forever.

“I don’t think I need to,”she replies coolly, as if she’s woken from a long sleep.

“I think now more than ever you do! It’s not just consenting adults anymore. There’s a baby we must look after.”

She’s silent again. I come close to losing my patience.

“You’re forgetting who you’re sleeping next to,”she finally says, that dreamy octave like a lullaby. “His thoughts are loud. Tortured. Violent.”

“You can hear him?”

“Yes. But he cannot hear me.”

“What’s he thinking?”I try not to look over at him. Although, I’m not sure I even need to. I can feel the heat simmering from his stoic frame.

“His mind is hard to follow. An intricate web of plans. Moves and countermoves. It’s unlike any mind of any living human.”She pauses, considering something. “Apart from yours, of course.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Sweet dreams, Skylenna.”

~

Skylenna

We take our showers incomplete silence. No one looks at each other.

No one says a word.

It’s sad how quickly we adjust to the freezing cold showers. How we stand naked in front of each other like animals being hosed down. How we just sort of exist here, lifelessly letting the water drip down our faces, bleeding into our eyes, seeping past our lips.

We stopped laughing. Stopped making jokes. Stopped the fun, witty banter. Even Niles seems suspended in a careless daze. It breaks my heart, stomps a boot in my gut. We can’t go on like this. It’s not fair.

“What’s the plan when we get to the commissary?” Warrose bumps elbows with Dessin as we dry off.

“Sit down.”

“That’s it?”

Dessin’s eyes are two swords that shoot to Warrose’s throat.

“Do nothing.”

Warrose glances at me with raised eyebrows. I shrug. Dessin isn’t one to give up, but I honestly have no clue what he’s planning.

We follow the assembly line of prisoners to the commissary. Being cruelly poked, shoved, and bruised by the sentinels that have nothing better to do. It’s difficult not to feel defeated. I’ve thought about ways to get Marilynn food. Ways to sneak into the kitchen. But even Helga Bee won’t risk getting starved out. They watch us like hawks. Only Kaspias was able to slip us some soup. And I don’t think we’ll get that lucky twice.

I turn to Ruth. “Do you think you can talk to Kaspias again?”

She shrugs. “I can try.”

Screams fill the commissary as the front of the line enters through the high-arch doorways. Long strings of words jumble together, fast phrases we can’t understand.

The assembly line speeds up, curious to see the ruckus. Stumbling around each other, shoving, throwing elbows. Our group huddles together. Dessin, Niles, and Warrose form a circle around us. A male instinct to keep us close, safe from the stampede of interested prisoners. Immediately, Ruth and I hold Marilynn close, protecting her from the chaos of violence breaking out around us. She eyes our hands with prickly skepticism.

We keep our steady pace, entering the commissary along with the wave of inmates gasping, shouting, laughing. I search through the crowd, straining my eyes to peer through their jostling bodies.

My feet stop dead in their tracks.

Muscles lock in place.

A familiar awfulness twists around my organs, gripping my throat like a demon that’s broken loose from hell, wreaking havoc on this prison.

A burly woman lies naked on the center table. Apple in her mouth. Ankles and wrists tied together. Dead and roasted like a pig. And to top off the image of pure savagery, her leathery, cooked body is on a patch of lettuce, potatoes, cheese, onions, carrots, and squash.

The table is set like a feast for a king.

“It’s…the head cook,” Ruth translates through a disgusted gasp.

“Dear God,” Niles chokes.

The smell travels through the room like a plague. Each of us gags, winces, or plugs our nose at the sour, burned stink.

I revolve to my left slowly, our friends following my cautious movements. Dessin stares at the aftermath of a rather creative murder. His expression is a show of dark clouds and thunder powerful enough to rumble the earth.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” I say with a vigor of chills that shell my skin, burrowing under it for good measure. Bile splashes against the back of my throat, burning the roof of my mouth. Though I’m grateful for this power move, I’m still human. And a dead body is still a dead body.

His dilated, chocolate eyes dart to me, and the heat sweltering through our connection is molten hot. A phoenix of flames. He winks, drawing a throaty, shocked laugh from Warrose.

“No fucking way. Christ, you’re a goddamned artist.” Warrose places his hands on the back of his head, chuckling at the confused faces surrounding the crime. Even with his dark humor, it’s obvious that he’s disturbed by Dessin’s choice of death for the cook.

Dessin takes a step toward the kitchen staff. The same individuals who have deprived us of food for weeks. They frantically glance at their head cook with confusion, fear, and repulsion. With his unrelenting presence in front of them, the crowd backs away, giving him the floor.

Whispers die out. The foreign gossip slows to a stop.

All eyes on the once infamous Patient Thirteen.

“Ahyë quòvex na müoi këx,” Dessin growls in a flawless accent.

He knows Old Alkadonian?!

“Holy shit,” Ruth barks out a laugh that is entwined with a deep cringe followed by a gagging sound.

I grab her elbow impatiently, shaking her for a quick translation.

“He says, I’ll take my meal now.”

We gawk back at the kitchen staff, jaws dropping, eyes tracing over his large, muscular stance. A silent question if he could really have pulled this off. A prisoner can’t escape their cage. A prisoner couldn’t have possibly been able to overcome the special, fucked-up magnets in our ears. Right?

Dessin smirks, like he knows the doubt that they might have. And with a quick kick of the feast table, the head cook’s naked body rolls to the side, revealing a bloody carving on her belly that says:

Patient Thirteen’s Puppet

A tremor of déjà vu invades my thoughts. Albatross. Dessin’s temper.

“He’s back,” I say, shaking my head. Am I surprised? No. Am I perplexed as to how the hell he pulled this off? Absolutely, yes.

The kitchen staff race back to their places behind the assembly counter. Rushing in the endeavor to curate a tray. Dessin nods to us, walking to the front of the line.

After receiving our shitty trays with their disgusting excuse for food, we walk back to our table, ignoring the gaping eyes and blur of whispers.

“You’re a son of a bitch,” Warrose says as he spoons in a mouthful of whatever stew concoction they served us.

Dessin watches Marilynn hum in delight, shoveling the goopy brown substance into her mouth. She peeks up from her hunched position over her food, feeling the dominating weight of Dessin’s eyes on her. The corner of her mouth moves up a millimeter. It’s not even enough to be deciphered as a smile. But I’m going to count it as one.

“I haven’t seen a Dessin magic trick in a while,” I remark, peeling off a piece of bread. “I do hate that they forced his hand. Made him resort to doing something this…disturbing.”

“A Dessin magic trick?” he repeats.

“Yeah, a magic trick from hell,” Ruth adds theatrically. “Remember Meridei’s dining party? Oh my god, you guys should have been there!”

“What’d he do?” Niles’s voice echoes from inside his metal bowl.

“He blackmailed every conformist and orderly with private photographs of their family. Then poisoned them with the champagne. It was a fireworks show of puke,” I explain.

“Why?” Warrose asks, even though he’s grinning like he doesn’t need a good reason.

“Because they were harassing Skylenna,” Dessin says flatly.

“Did it work?” Warrose bites off a chunk of his stale bread.

“Obviously.”

Niles laughs from inside his bowl. He’s slurping that stew up like a dog.

My spoon bobs on the edge of my index finger, probing the air in restless circles as my impatience pulsates between Dessin and me. And he, being the man who can usually sense my impending questions, tilts his face an inch in my direction, though he doesn’t meet my eyes yet. Waiting for him to look at me is as thrilling as seeing the sun on a moonless night.

“Are you going to tell us how you pulled this off?”

The table’s chatter tapers off into a fuzzy quiet as they turn to Dessin in anticipation. The question is the only one that matters right now. We have no way of getting out of these cages. He was secure in his confinement when I woke up this morning.

“What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two weeks?” Dessin takes a sip of his water, pointing at his seat that’s facing the kitchen staff. “Every time we’ve sat in this commissary, I sit here. Why? Because I get to watch how they work. I figured out who the head cook was, saw that she was the one calling the shots. Learned she gets here before the rest of the staff at dawn to prep the food.”

We stare at him like children listening to a fascinating bedtime story.

Dessin glances around at our faces and shrugs like that should be enough explanation to piece together.

“But how did you get out of your cage?” Niles demands with childlike wonder.

Dessin signals with his chin to his shoulder. I gasp as I lean closer, seeing now that it’s swollen and out of place. He signals to Warrose, nodding for him to come over.

Warrose rises from his seat, blowing out a breath as he examines Dessin’s arm on the way over. “Shit, I can’t believe I didn’t notice it was dislocated.”

With a slow rotation of his forearm, Warrose snaps his shoulder back in place. Dessin doesn’t even flinch. My insides are gutted at the wet, crackling sounds that come from his shoulder and Warrose’s precise movements. How did I not notice?!

“I had to rearrange my body a little bit to get out of the dent I made in my cage,” he explains briefly, like it’s no big deal. He dislocated his own damn arm, and it’s no big deal.

“You mean the small space you made when you pulled your bars apart that time Skylenna was being attacked?” Ruth says with a hanging jaw.

Dessin snarls at the mention of me being harmed.

“And you roasted the head cook with a wounded shoulder,” I deadpan.

He blinks like that shouldn’t be a surprise.

I shake my head with a smile, continuing to eat my hot meal like it’s the best damn thing I’ve ever tasted. And it kind of is. This small victory is delicious. It put a smile on all of our faces. It fed Marilynn and her baby. It squeezed a few new jokes out of Niles. It gave Dessin dominance again, even if it’s only over the kitchen staff.

“Oh God, is that Skylenna humming while she eats again?” Niles licks his lips and leans back with a full belly and satisfied smile.

I open my mouth to bite back, but a rough knuckle grazes my cheek. Warm and electric. Dessin’s gaze descends into my eyes like an anchor being dropped in an ocean.

“Fuck off, Niles. That’s the sweetest sound in the world to me right now.”

~

Warrose

I clean my bowl.

Literally.

I polish it, savor it, maybe even cradle it to my chest.

We all do.

But not the little rebel.

I glance down at her half-eaten stew with genuine offense taken at the sight. She’s really going to pull this again? We’ve been starved for how long, and she’s going to politely leave half her food to show us that she’s taking proper care of her weight?

We’ve been starved!

“Hell. No.” I huff out sharply through my nostrils.

Ruth points her stubborn, stony face in my direction, challenging me with tendrils of resentment coiling around her throat.

“Speak. Full. Sentences.” She injects the command with unfeeling iron.

This condescending tone pulls the same reaction out of me that I used to get with Absinthe in our Demechnef training. Irrational anger. An explosive approach.

“Full sentences, huh? Eat your goddamned food like an adult. You’re beautiful no matter how many calories you eat. There. Better? Was that full enough for you?” My chest tightens at the way her spine snaps straight and her face flinches in an effort to not show any reactionary emotions.

Clearly, I hear the insensitivity of my words.

But it’s too late. They’re out there. I’ve said them.

“I’m no longer hungry.” Ruth pushes her bowl away an inch.

But wait…are her round, doe eyes glistening? She stares into the vastness of the commissary with the graceful posture of royalty. Deciding I’m not worth her time to even look at.

Skylenna moves like a shadow around the table until she’s kneeling on Ruth’s left side, placing thin fingers on her wrist. Ruth keeps her head forward, but glances down with her brown eyes.

“I know it isn’t easy, but I’m so proud of you,” she says warmly. “This was good.” She taps a finger on the half-eaten bowl with pride and encouragement.

Ruth’s eyes are no longer glistening. They’re watering excessively.

My lips roll in, trying to conjure back every harsh, judgmental word I said.

“We can finish it together if that’s something you’d want. Like the bathtubs, remember?” Skylenna’s gentle approach causes pangs in my stomach, clamping closed around my heart.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I see what she’s doing. I see how my approach was fucked.

“Okay,” Ruth finally mutters in a low, undetectable volume. And thankfully, Niles is babbling away about the menu for the week and what he’s excited to eat next. Therefore, it’s giving the illusion that this is a private moment.

Skylenna’s glowing emerald eyes flash with silent victory. She hooks a finger around the edge of the bowl, dragging it toward them as she talks about a night when they snuck food into a bedroom. They eat one spoonful of the stew at a time as they gossip, snickering about other unrelated topics. It’s a kind, clever tactic on Skylenna’s end. She’s distracting her with positive emotions as they eat socially. No pressure. No judgment.

I scan the table to see if anyone else witnessed my assholery.

My eyes collide with Dessin. And he’s not doing a great job at holding back the judging scowl on his own face.

I purse my lips. “I—fucked—up,” I mouth with a poorly contained cringe.

He pauses. “I’m—not—going—to—disagree—with—you—on—that.”

“And—now—you’re—the—expert—on—manners?”

His lips twitch as he reads mine.

As the group rises to leave, Skylenna tugs on my elbow to stay behind. Waiting quietly until Ruth files out behind Niles in a line to the stadium.

“I know,” I sigh in defeat.

“No. I don’t think you do.”

My head and shoulders droop forward. I’m a fuckup. I know. Might as well call me Niles, the family pariah. The village idiot.

“Warrose?” Skylenna grazes the hair on my arms with her fingertips.

I raise my eyes to meet hers.

“You are not a woman. You have never been forced to starve yourself as a part of the lady-doll regimen.”

Thank God almighty.

“It’s okay that you don’t understand what that does to a woman’s mental health. But I’m going to educate you so that you can appropriately respond to her as she recovers from this trauma without…”

“Without sounding like an ignorant bastard.”

Her laugh greases the air around us. The soothing sound helps some of the anxiety exit my chest cavity. “Yes. That.”

I reach behind my head to tighten the tie holding my hair up in a ponytail.

“I don’t mean to be such a dick when I see her doing that…I’m angry at what the city did to her. And I guess I take it out on her in the moment.”

“Which isn’t fair because she’s the victim.”

“Right,” I say with a cloud of self-loathing hovering over the word.

Skylenna’s stare loses focus as she thinks about a solution. Her complexion had a beautiful golden glow, much like Niles’s, before we entered this place. Now, she’s gone a little pale. Clammy. Her honeyed hair has lost its shine. And she looks several pounds lighter around the waist and hips. I worry about her, too, the way I’d look out for a sister. We bonded that night I had to share my body heat. Or even when I helped carry her away from Dessin’s lifeless body.

I guess I haven’t taken much time to acknowledge my fondness for her.

“Can I give you a few responses for the next time she rejects her food?”

I nod hopefully.

“Telling her you’re here to listen if she ever wants to talk about it. This is important because the road to recovery is long, and if she feels comfortable enough to open up and be vulnerable…it makes self-awareness that much easier for her to confront the hard stuff.” Skylenna absently keeps her fingertips on my forearm as she continues her list. “Let her know that you’re proud of her for eating the amount she did. Offer to eat a little more with her. Never give advice or criticism. Help her understand that she is not to blame for this hardship.”

Guilt pierces my chest and twists like a rusted dagger. I feel like a fucking fool for talking to her with such insensitivity all this time.

“I’m sorry, Skylenna.”

“You didn’t know. I know you were just frustrated because you want her to see how beautiful you think she is without these extreme tactics,” she offers with a sympathetic smile.

My Adam’s apple jumps. I do think she’s beautiful. Is it that obvious?

“Now that you understand a little better, will you please be more considerate of her feelings?” Skylenna squeezes my arm to bring my focus back down to her.

“Of course. Thank you, Skylenna.”