Page 5 of Dare To Fall

I cast careful looks at her as I guide her inside. Her face is blank, eyes dull, lips almost slack, and I’m worried that something has broken inside her. Something I won’t be able to fix.

We walk through the tunnel in silence, and she waits while I check to make sure no one is in the hallway before I lead her out and down to my room.

Her silence is unnerving. I don’t like it. I’d rather she fought with me, but I don’t say anything until I’ve got her in my room and locked the door.

She’s standing where I left her, in the center of the room, hands loose at her sides, when I turn to face her.

“Ari?”

She doesn’t respond to me.

“I need you to get out of those clothes. I don’t know what you were doing, but they’re filthy.” The knees of her pants are covered in dirt, her sneakers the same. “Will you sit down for me?”

She drops onto the mattress, but still doesn’t say anything. I kneel in front of her and ease her feet out of the sneakers, and peel off her socks. “Pants next, Kitten.”

There’s no reaction to the nickname, and I don’t know if it’s because she isn’t hearing me or …

Or what?

Wrapping my fingers around hers, I tug her back to her feet, then slowly push the pants down her legs. The entire time, I’m waiting for her to react, but she just stands there and lets me strip her out of them.

“Back on the bed.” I pull back the sheets. “Lie down, Kitten.”

She follows every command I give without comment.

I hate it.

I hate the fucking silence. The lack of argument. The absence of fire in her eyes.

Kicking out of my sneakers, I crawl onto the bed beside her and pull her into my arms. She’s stiff, unresponsive, and so fucking cold.

That worries me. I reach down for the sheets and tuck them around us both.

“Close your eyes, Kitten. Try to sleep, okay? You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

Chapter 2

Arabella

A soft voice whispers in my ear, and a hand strokes my hair. I’m so cold, and the body next to mine is a furnace burning through the ice, cocooning me in its heat. My thoughts are sluggish. All I can think about is how I’d waited for Sin for hours out in the freezing wind, while hope died a slow and painful death as time trickled by.

“Close your eyes, Kitten. Try to sleep, okay? You’re safe now. I’ve got you.” The voice is familiar.

I don’t respond.

“You’re like a fucking ice cube,” the voice continues. “I’m going to try and get you warmed up, but I want you to close your eyes and rest.”

A hand moves over my side, the heat burning a path along my skin. It hurts. He continues to whisper to me, and eventually, my eyes grow heavy, and I give myself up to exhaustion.

***

Consciousness returns slowly—memories awaken a sliver at a time.

Sin didn’t come. The realization swallowed me whole and set me wandering through the woods like a lost ghost. I walked and walked until I found the chapel. Something inside me felt broken, the fragments of hope wearing down to a fine powder. I knelt on the stone floor with no will to go back to school. I wanted the cold to take me. To lie down and let it take me away from all the pain.

“She’s been asleep for eight fucking hours,” a voice rumbles from behind me. “She shouldn’t be out of it this long.”

“You said she was out of it when you found her,” a second voice replies.

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