Page 39 of Princess

“No.” I’m scowling as I sit up on the side of the bed, trying to pull my scattered thoughts together. “I overslept, and I never do that. You should have woken me up when you got up.”

“Like hell, I should.” He’s frowning back at me as he sits on the bed beside me. “You needed the sleep, and you didn’t miss anything important. I was just helping out with some chores.”

“I could have helped too.” I’m making too big a deal about this. I know I am. But I’m feeling so off-kilter I can’t seem to stop myself. “I didn’t need to lie around in bed all morning like a lazy teenager.”

He gives me a mild eye roll, but his voice is a little softer as he says, “You had a hard day yesterday and a long night. You needed the sleep.”

“You needed it too.”

“I don’t sleep much. Not anymore.”

Maybe it’s the way he says the words. Matter-of-fact. Like an unquestionable statement of his reality. Or maybe it’s the culmination of everything I’ve learned about him in the past five years. But I suddenly realize something—in one of those flashes of insight that sometimes hit without warning.

Everything I assumed was cold or unfeeling in him isn’t that at all. It’s him desperately tightening his grip around a world that’s always spinning out of control. He’s always fighting to hold it together—so much that he won’t even let himself sleep.

The revelation hurts my chest. I can barely breathe for a few seconds around the weight where my heart should be.

Finally I say the only thing I’m capable of getting out. “You need sleep as much as I do.”

He must hear something in the hoarse whisper of my words. He takes a quick, thick breath.

I reach over to pick up his hand, which he’s holding in a loose fist on the bed between us. I gently unclench each finger and massage the palm with my thumbs.

Neither one of us speaks for a few minutes. The only sound in the room is his slightly ragged breathing. I want to say something that expresses how I’m feeling right now. To let him know he can trust me. That he can let go with me. He doesn’t always have to exist in this hard, endless suppression.

But I don’t know how to say all that, and he might not want to hear it from me.

So I don’t say anything. I just rub his hand.

Finally he shifts slightly on the bed and pulls his arm away.

It hurts as much as anything, but the moment—whatever it was—is clearly over. “So what’s the plan today?” I ask, pleased and surprised that I sound almost natural.

“Yeah, Jackson and I were talking about that. We think it’s worth waiting a few days to see if the Wolf Packs move out on their own. Most of our supplies are in the bunker, which they can’t get to, so they’ll go through the stuff on the surface pretty quick. Maybe they’ll move on afterward.”

I don’t like that he’s been talking this through and making plans with Jackson. He should be doing that with me. I’m the one who’s actually involved. But all I say is, “That makes sense, I guess. So we’ll just stay here for a few days and then go see what’s happening?”

“Yeah. That’s the plan.”

“And if they don’t move on?”

“Then we’ll have to do something.”

“You and me?”

“More than that. It’s not just about our people. It’s about the safety of the whole region. We can’t let those Wolf Packs get more power than they already have, and if they all band together, they will. The bunker won’t be their only target. They’ll come here to New Haven. And there are fortified towns they might decide to attack. There are individual homesteads scattered around. People who are trying to make a life here can’t just let the gangs come together into another drove that will gobble everything up. So if they’re still camped out there and building up their force, it won’t just be you and me trying to take them down.”

I nod slowly, thinking through all this. It makes sense. And it’s reassuring that we won’t be alone. But it’s also clear that, if that happens, Grant won’t be relying on me for help.

He won’t even really need me.

Maybe nobody will.

“Are you all right?” he asks in a different tone. He pushes back the curtain of hair that’s fallen forward to hide my face.

“Yeah.” I lick my lips and smile at him. “Fine. I don’t mind staying here for a few days. And of course I’ll do anything I can to take care of our people and keep it safe around here.”

I mean it. I’m not going to be selfish. Or childishly petty.

---