Page 125 of Born for Lace

I touch my mouth, fingertips tracing the curve that feels so unfamiliar.

The thought of him, my brute, who left this inside me, manages to make me smile. What does that mean? What does that mean?

Is time healing me?

Am I forgetting?

I don’t want to forget.

“Dahlia,” Robert’s voice soars through the greenhouse, drawing my gaze to the entrance. He is walking down the narrow path, greeting everyone he passes, his hazel eyes anchored on me. “You have a visitor.”

His words are a hot flame licking out, forcing a visceral response from me. “What?”

Tomar?

“An old companion of yours.” He looks concerned, but I can barely see straight as my adrenaline spikes. “Are you emotionally ready to see?—”

“Yes!” I wipe my hands on my dress, tiny crumbs of soil dusting my pregnant belly. “I’m fine. Lucy and I were just feeling the baby move.” I don’t know why I say that. It is a feeble attempt to convey my healthy mental status.

Making friends.

Everything is fine here.

Everyone is happy.

Let me see him!

We look at each other. And I wait… For five full heartbeats and one baby kick, during that moment of apprehension, the air stiffens so much that it is hard to inhale.

“Please,” I gasp.

He nods stiffly. “Alright. I will get us clearance to enter the tunneltogether.”

Shock. Excitement. Fear.

* * *

My heart thunders, pulse shuddering in my neck as I sit beside Robert, with two armed women—they call themselves Community Protectors—driving us down the tunnel that feeds through the mountain to the entrance.

I vaguely recall the drive through this cement channel months ago when my stomach wasn’t swollen.

Steep grey cement chases the car on all sides, the centre of the road pinned by the headlights. I draw swirls on my leg, aware now of this habit. One I’ve had since I was a child and used to draw swirls on everything.

I wonder how high the mountain above us goes, reaching past the Redwind into the sky. Can the peak see the stars and Missing Moon at night? How strong must the tunnel’s foundations be to hold a mountain on its back? Who built this tunnel? Is it from the old-world?

I find myself on the cusp of hysteria, breathless and jigging but stifling it, instead filling my mind with mundane questions.

Robert stares ahead, stern eyes watching the light at the end of the tunnel steadily grow. “Let me go first, Dahlia.”

“I’m free to go any time I like,” I state, adamant, still keen for confirmation because if it’s Tomar, I am going with him.

I’m going rogue.

“For your protection. Do I have to remind you that when you arrived five months ago, you had a fractured rib and contusions across your nose and eye?”

Tomar won’t hurt me.

Then I see it.

---