Page 48 of Ruin

Ava doesn’t try to fight me as I kneel down at the open gate of her cage and reach in. Summoning her silently with nothing more than a jerk of my head. She licks her lips, round eyes on mine, and uses the bars to drag herself towards me.

My hands find her waist, too many bones digging into my palms as I drag her out, lifting her effortlessly into my arms. Her fingers curl in her lap, matted hair pulled forward across both shoulders, hiding those little dark nipples from my view.

Her legs hook over my forearm, my other arm curling around her back, and I adjust her in my hold as high as I can, just so I can breathe her in. She smells a little like bleach, from her clean cage, and the leftover soap from when I washed her this morning, but other than that, she only smells of me. And as I carry her towards the work bench, I find my face getting closer and closer to the top of her head, just so I can smell me on her.

After weeks of feeding Ava shakes and vitamins, antibiotics, to build her strength, I want to try her on solids. Plain foods, just to get her stomach used to eating again.

I rest my back against one of the wooden legs of the workbench as I take us down to the floor. Dillion already positioned beneath the table to sit beside us. I stroke my finger down his orange beak, up and over the soft, white feathers of his head, his eyes, too, on her. And not for the first time since I brought her here, do I wonder what Dillon thinks about my keeping her, in his space.

Ava’s tiny body tucks into the crook of my right arm, and then I position her bottom half, so she’s curled up on my thighs, my legs stretched out before me. Her cold skeletal hands lace together in anxious fists, scarred knuckles pressing into the hard packed muscles of my abdomen as she leans into me like I’m not the monster that hurts her. But I don’t hate it, and it makes my heart gallop beneath my bones.

Taking the small black bowl from the bench above our heads, I lift it down to show her, but she doesn’t look at the bowl, let alone what’s inside. Her big blue eyes, ringed in warm honey-brown, stare past me, like she’s captivated by something else. Her hands pressing into my belly harder and harder as though she’s not consciously aware she’s even doing it, and I wonder if she’s even really seeing me.

“Baby Bird,” I rasp lowly, my voice still aching from a few days of speaking too many words. “I’m going to feed you,” I tell her, but she doesn’t react. “Okay?” I dip my chin, try to catch her eye, my right arm curled tightly around her back, long fingers fanned over the front of her exposed ribs.

Her lips pop open like she’s going to speak, but she winces almost immediately, like even attempting to talk hurts her and I worry that the shackle isn’t the real problem with her speech.

I follow her line of sight, finding Dillon. I glance between the two of them, and then place the bowl behind my back, instead, twirling Dillon’s pulley string around my finger and wheeling him closer. Ava flinches at the small squeak his wooden wheels make, staring up at me as the white duck stares at her.

“This is Dillon,” I introduce her, taking one of her hands in mine, the back of it against my palm. “And this is Ava,” I tell Dillon, reaching our joined hands up towards his face.

I look down at Ava, burrowing into my chest as she watches our extended hands move closer.

“He won’t hurt you, Baby Bird,” I reassure her, nodding my head in Dillon’s direction, the front edge of his cart flush with the side of my thigh.

Then I bring her fingers to the top of his head, using my grip on her to stroke down his feathers gently. Dillon is the only thing I am ever gentle with. I never want to be careful with anything else.

Until maybe now.

I feel her flinch as her fingertips make contact, and a short laugh escapes me at the divot of uncertainty appearing between her dark brows. At the sound, she freezes in my lap, outstretched arm going stiff. She cautiously lifts her gaze to mine, eyes flicking between my own, and slowly, the corner of her mouth pulls up into some semblance of a smile. Her hand still balled in my lap uncurls, fingertips flexing against my abs, she slides her hand up, over my sternum, sending goosebumps smattering all over my exposed skin.

Flattening her palm over my heart, she stares at her splayed fingers, and the longer she stares, the harder my heart kicks against her touch, the beat of it getting quicker and quicker. And then her fingers start to move again, the taut tendons in her arm relaxing, and it’s her guiding me as she strokes Dillon’s head.

I feel frozen then, the way I feel her entire body relax, melting into me, letting me keep her cradled to my chest, but she burrows her way in further, as though she’s trying to crawl her way inside of me. And I would let her. I would help. Cut open my own chest cavity, hold apart my ribcage as she crawled into the space, stitched herself into my heart. I would be immortal, with her soul tethered to mine.

She coughs, snapping me free of my thoughts. The splutter not as wet sounding as before. I release her hand, letting her wander over Dillon’s head. I should feel possessive over him, he’s just for me and I don’t let anyone but Lala touch him. Instead, I just feel warmth, and I can’t explain what it means, but I don’t hate it.

I reach behind me, retrieving the small bowl, drawing her eye finally as the sound of the china sliding across the rough concrete reaches her ears.

She stares at the small, chopped carrots as I scoop some onto the gold spoon, and flinches back like I’m attempting to force feed her razor blades. Placing the spoon back into the bowl, I tip the carrots off, using the back of the spoon to crush them into a chunky paste.

“We go at your pace,” I tell her with a small nod of my head, keep my eyes on hers, “but youareeating.”

Ava’s eyes flicker between my own, uncertain, but I keep the spoon held up, and just as I feel the threads of my temper spark to life, her mouth opens. Lips parting to wrap around the gold spoon, her sparkling blue-brown eyes never straying from mine, she takes the puree onto her tongue and slowly starts to chew.

I watch Ava carefully as she swallows with caution, trying to swallow wearing a shackle makes you feel like you’re going to suffocate, but she manages to make it look graceful even when she winces. Her little nose twitches and wrinkles as she chews the next small spoonful of mashed vegetables. After so many mouthfuls, her eyes never having left mine once, I drop my gaze to the small black cereal bowl. Only a few grains of white rice left which I shovel onto the spoon, lifting it to her lips.

Once she takes the last spoonful in her mouth, I place the bowl down beside my leg, drop my hand to her bare calf, pressing my fingers into the muscle I struggle to locate. She flinches at that like it pains her, relaxing into the touch almost immediately as though my touch burns but soothes in some sort of unexpected way. Perhaps she just always expects my touch to hurt.

I stare down at her naked skin, all of her pulled in close to her centre, like she’s cocooning as tightly as possible to be less noticeable. I don’t ease up my grip on her calf, massaging lightly up and down the length of her leg, feeling more bone than muscle as I switch between the two.

Her head rests easily into my chest, cheek pressing to my skin and her hand remains palm down over my heart. Her other hand rests atop her belly, her chain sandwiched between. Fingers curled loosely into the palm of her hand, digits relaxed, just like the rest of her. Something I wonder if she even notices.

We sit in silence, the black painted room bathed in dim red, only a singular bulb lit as we stay holding one another on the damp floor. I think of Kazimir, the explosion, blood seeping from his head. How all I could think of as I stared at him flopped and limp on the ground, my feet pounding through singed earth to reach him, was that he never told me how he felt.

Because I wouldn’t let him.

Because I don’t know how to do that shit.

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