Page 93 of Fanged Embrace
“So.” She fiddled with the sleeve of her sweater—my sweater, actually. She must have swiped it from my wardrobe. “Are you gonna—like, wave a magic wand or are we doing this au natural?”
My frown was exaggerated, comical for her sake. She was nervous—I could feel it in her aura—so she was cracking jokes to ease the tension. “No, I don't need a wand! Just… Here, give me your face.”
I gripped her cheeks and pulled her closer and Laurie allowed the maneuver with only the slightest grimace and a muttered curse.
When she met my eyes, painfully vulnerable under that snark, I drew a steadying breath and rested our foreheads together. Her pulse fluttered hummingbird-quick beneath my thumbs.
“Ready?” I whispered.
Laurie sucked in a breath, and let it out slowly.
She closed her eyes. “Ready.”
I shut my eyes and let our auras braid together, sinking into her subconscious like sifting through layers of sand—and then slammed into a wall. Slick, obsidian-smooth, bristling with barbed wire emotions. The impact jarred both of us; Laurie’sshoulders jerked, a hiss of pain slipping between clenched teeth.
“Easy,” I murmured, sliding my palms to her knees in a grounding touch. “You’re doing great.”
I had to hope I was doing okay too. Considering I had next to no idea what I was doing.
Laurie forced a nod, breathing through her nose. The rigid barrier pulsed—fight-or-flight encoded in memory. I exhaled patience, letting my empathic current seep into the cracks.I’m here. You’re safe. Let me in.It wasn’t a command, more like a lullaby thrumming through her head. Slowly the wall softened—like glass warming to wax—becoming semi-permeable. Her aura flickered, then yielded, and I slipped through.
Inside, memories floated like icebergs in dark water. It was overwhelming, and I gritted my teeth to keep myself from pulling away from that cold, desolate landscape in her head. I fought back tears when I realized that this was what she lived with. This barren cavern was the state of her mind—her life.
I let Laurie guide me, patient while she picked through poisoned images of her past, tentatively offering the first shard: a memory of stainless-steel tables and latex gloves, her body nothing but a specimen.
I felt her flinch. Beneath my ribs, the same flinch echoed, but I held the thread gently, examining its shape without judgment. Then, with the lightest psychic tug, I coaxed it away from the core of her mind and anchored it in my own—and when I had it secured, I drew in a breath, cradled the tainted memory, and turned it to mist. I willed it away to nothing.
The images dissipated like smoke in the wind.
Laurie’s breath hitched but she didn’t force me out. Instead, she let out a rattling breath, and pushed forward another snapshot. I reached for it and my mind flared full of uncomfortable images.
Bright surgical lamps, the cold click of restraints, a voice noting vitals like Laurie was inventory and not a human being.
Laurie herself trembled under my palms, but she coaxed the memory closer to me. I wrapped it in the same velvet focus and drew it out, careful not to disturb memories she chose to keep. The moment it detached from her mind, it lost its jagged edge. I spun the shard into mist—tendrils of gray that dissipated into the psychic void.
Piece by piece, we worked—tiny scenes of indignity, moments where her voice had been stolen, autonomy stripped. Each time I lifted a memory free, the psychic sting flared through my own nerves—sharp, then dulled by the mental barrier I’d fashioned for this purpose.
Every snapshot sat like a heavy, crushing weight on my chest. But it was a heaviness I could bear. I could do it for her.
At the fourth extraction, Laurie’s shoulders sagged. Her breath left in a softoh, and I opened my eyes to find her eyelids fluttering, her body slumping over like a weight had tumbled from her back. I caught her before she folded and held her while she melted in my arms.
“Are you all right?” I murmured into her hair, worried I’d pushed her too far. “How does it feel?”
Laurie took a moment to respond, cheek pressed flush against my sternum. When she spoke, her voice was thick with astonishment, choked up as tears spilled freely. “It feels… freeing. Like I–I can breathe.”
I stroked her back, feeling the tremor of muscles relearning ease. A glow of quiet triumph pulsed in my chest, tempered by the ache her memories had left behind, but worth every painful prick.
“We should stop here for now.” I sagged over her, fatigue catching up with me in a sudden rush. “I think we both need a break.”
Laurie relented without protest and nodded against mycollarbone. I tightened my arms around her, and rocked the both of us gently like I did the first time I’d watched her fall apart, and so many times after that moment.
This was far from over. There were still hundreds of memories to sift through, and Laurie had a long way to go—we both did, because we were in this together—but it was a start. It was a flicker of hope. A pinprick of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
A possible future, one where Laurie made it out alive.
46
Laurie
