Page 33 of Huck Frasier
“Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
Later, tangled together beneath a blanket, sweat cooling on our skin, I rested my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat.
Steady. Solid.
Just like him.
“We’re not done,” I said quietly.
“I know.”
“They’ll move the kids soon. I can feel it.”
“We’ll stop them.”
Together.
23
Frasier
The Morning After
Marley was curled on the bed beside me, wrapped in one of my flannel shirts. Her hair was damp from a quick shower, and her face was scrubbed clean. Still bruised, still pale—but the steel in her spine was coming back. Her ribs were hurting like hell. I shouldn’t have made love to her. She was hurting.
She nursed a mug of tea like it might anchor her. “Are we going to make love before we leave?”
“No. You need to heal.”
We sat in silence for a while. The hush of early light on the bare mountains outside. The stillness that only comes after survival.
Then she said, “Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone?”
I looked over at her. “Always.”
She stared into the mug. “When I was ten, my mom left the stove on.”
I didn’t say anything. Just waited.
“She lit a cigarette, forgot about the burner, I guess she forgot who knows, and she walked out of the house. Left me and Larkhome alone. We were playing dress-up in the hallway, didn’t even smell the gas.”
Her voice was flat now. Careful.
“Our dad had forgotten something and came back for it. Found the whole kitchen full of gas fumes, a moment later no telling what would have happened. He got us out in time. But if he hadn’t…”
Her eyes lifted, glassy but fierce. “We’d be dead. Me. Lark. And I don’t think she would’ve noticed.”
“Jesus,” I breathed.
“She said it was an accident. But after that, we never trusted her. And then when she disappeared after graduation, it almost felt like a relief. Like we could finally breathe without worrying we wouldn’t wake up.”
I reached out, took her hand.
She didn’t let go.
“I still smell it sometimes,” she whispered. “The gas. It makes me freeze. And sometimes I wonder if I’ve got the same crack in my brain she had. Like if I ever stop running, it’ll catch up.”
