Page 110 of Awry
I’m reckless only with my own mortality — testing my own mortality?— when I’m … alone …
I’m really not a fan of the personal revelations that keep piling up.Perhaps it’s all just part of the transition between who I was and who I must now become.
“And … your aunt?”Presh asks.“Will she wake up like you did and find all her essence-bound mates dead?”
The question hangs between us, and for a brief moment, it feels too complicated to answer.It’s not that any of it, any of this, is a secret.Not from Presh, at least.
But when the silence sits unanswered for long enough that it gains weight, I answer simply, “No.”
Presh opens her mouth, as if to press me.But then she just offers me a sad sort of smile and steps through into the living space beyond the door.
“Zaya?”Rought murmurs so quietly that my name is more a brush of air across my forehead than a vocalization.He’s hovering his hand at the small of my back, not touching me.
I step to the side, not forward or back, leaving his hand hanging in the air.I turn away, intent on heading back to the house.I’m not interested in what someone who claims he has a soul-bonded mate wants to show me.I feel weirdly raw and vulnerable, even though it’s obviously my misunderstanding of his attention.Of the way he interacted with me like I was a … person.
Yes.That’s all it is.
My hand closes around the latch to the exterior door before I remember I should probably try to act as though I have some manners.I glance back over my shoulder in Rought’s general direction, though not truly looking at him.“Thank you for tuning up the truck.”
“It barely needed anything.”
I just nod and open the door, instantly buffeted by a misty breeze across my face and neck.The wind has shifted.“Will you tell Presh I’ve gone for a nap myself?”
I have no intention of napping.For someone who feels so empty, still so heavy with that emptiness in my guts, my insides, I’m weirdly keyed up.I’m not sure I’m capable of napping now even if I try.“I’ll text her to set up another time.”
“Tomorrow, same time?”
“I’ll text.”
I step through the door into the grayed-over sky of the late afternoon, bow my head to avoid the mist — even though I’m usually perfectly happy to walk through it — and trudge back to the house.
“Zaya!”Rought calls after me.I don’t look back, but I can sense he’s hovering in the doorway.“I won’t push.But I think you might like Mack’s photographs.He’s got a gallery of them in the loft of the suite.”
I wave over my shoulder but don’t look back.Rought watches me the entire way to the house.
I should do all sorts of things.Specifically, I should continue my haphazard investigation of my aunt’s last days, or follow up on any of the messages beginning to pile up in my inbox from family members who have all felt the reverberations of the intersection point transferring to me.The energy tied into the intersection sustains us all.It’s the reason the Gage bloodline burns so bright.
But I don’t do that.
Instead, I strip off my wet clothing in the laundry room, put yet another load through the laundry or to hang to dry, and cross through the house in a tank top and underwear.
I crawl into my bed.
I stare up at the ceiling.
Maybe thirty minutes later, I track Rought’s and Presh’s energy as they leave the property.
Even when Muta joins me, sliding under the duvet to line up along my leg and torso and rest his head on my clavicle, I still feel empty.
Lost.
I know this feeling.Though I usually don’t let it get so intense.It’s the feeling that usually propels me into another country, into seeking out things that need to be fixed.Into testing myself.
But I’m the Conduit now.
How can I be the anchor when I’m so unmoored?
Eleven
