Page 22 of Broken By Silence
Lottie
Warmth like I’ve never known wakes me. Two solid bodies are pressed against either side of mine, heat radiating from them like living blankets.
For a moment, I breathe it all in. Slowly, suspended in the quiet cocoon of Archer and Oscar, but my throat is parched, and the thirst wins out.
Carefully, I ease myself from between them, untangling limbs and lifting their arms without waking them. Archer grumbles in his sleep but doesn’t stir. Archer shifts slightly, his hand brushing the sheets where I just was.
I pull on the sweatshirt and shorts, then pad out of the room on bare feet. The cool kitchen tiles are a sharp contrast to the warmth I left behind. Sleeping between them both quietens the dreams, and if they come at all, I don’t remember them. Only a distant echo—an ache in my chest, a familiar panic pressing at the edges of my mind, and a dryness in my throat like I was screaming underwater.
I reach for a glass from the shelf, the cupboard creaking as I close the door. The faucet hisses as I fill it, and the sound feels too loud for the time. I lift the glass to my lips and freeze as a figure appears in thecorner of my vision. My heart jerks. The water sloshes over the rim, cool against my hand.
Claire.
She stands so close to me, I don’t know how I didn’t hear her approaching, arms crossed. Her knowing eyes flick to the glass in my hand, then to my face. “Nightmare?” she asks softly.
I shake my head. “Not tonight. I woke up gasping for a drink after feeling like I was boiling alive between them both.”
She steps closer, shaking her head and laughing softly. “Should have known they wouldn’t go far after everything. How are you feeling, sweet girl?”
“Tired.”
“Too tired to fight?” My eyes flick to the floor, avoiding the all-knowing look she always gives me. She’s barefoot, like me, but while I’m half-awake and feeling frayed at the edges, she’s sharp, like every move is deliberate.
“I don’t know how to fight this. Lorenzo won’t stop…” I sigh, placing the glass on the counter with a soft clink. “But I don’t want to give him that power over me ever again. I meant what I said earlier when I said I want to fight for myself. Fight with them instead of them fighting my battles for me.”
“Come with me,” she demands.
Claire leads me through the hallway, past the living room, and the bedrooms. I realize I haven’t been down this way before. When I first moved in, I was too scared to explore, but Archer led me around the house by my hand, pointing out all the rooms, and ever since then, I’ve been like a creature of habit, only going to places I was familiar with.
She stops in front of a door I’d never seen open before, half-hidden beneath the staircase. She turns the handle, and it groans softly as the door swings open, revealing a narrow flight of stairs that seems to descend into darkness.
“I’ve never been down here before,” I whisper.
“I know,” she says, flipping a switch on the wall. “No onehas.”
Pale light blinks to life, the stairs cast in a dull yellow color. Claire doesn’t wait, just starts down each step while I hesitate at the top for half a second before following. The air changes as we descend. Cooler. Like the air in cellars or old churches.
The room at the bottom doesn’t look like it belongs in this house. Black training mats are covering the floor, weapons lining the wall—wooden staffs, a few short blades. A single punching bag hangs from the ceiling in the corner, worn but still solid.
“So… not a hobby room?” I mutter under my breath, but Claire still hears.
She stops near the center and turns to face me. “Not a hobby room…” Her arms drop to her sides, her eyes settling on me. “This is mine. My room. Made for me, so I could expel the demons that I needed to.”
Something flickers behind her eyes. An old pain… a familiar pain.
I stand here, silently.
“You have demons, too, Lottie. Same kind. Different name, maybe, doesn’t matter, though. They don’t go away on their own.” She inhales deeply. “You need to learn to fight. Really fight, and I can’t trust those two up there to do it correctly. They love you too much to train you the way you need. They’ll hold back. I won’t.”
Claire sighs again. Her arms cross, hugging herself. “When I found out I was pregnant, before I knew it was a boy. I prayed it wasn’t a girl,” she says suddenly.
It stings. Landing like a slap I haven’t braced for, even though she doesn’t mean it like that. She sees it, of course, she does, and her eyes fill with pity. “I don’t mean it how it sounds, Lottie,” she quickly tries to reassure me. “If I had a daughter, I would’ve made sure she was capable just like I am. But this world, the one Will and I live in? It’s not kind or forgiving. We thrive in it, yes… but that comes with a cost. A risk. Someone would have hurt her just to hurt us.”
I look down, trying to hide the flicker of hurt behind my eyes. “I getit,” I whisper.
“I know you do,” Claire replies, her voice softer now. “But let me be clear with you… You are my daughter in every way that counts. You were already broken in ways I prayed no daughter of mine would ever be before you came to us, and I would have protected you with my last breath if I could have, sweet girl… but I couldn’t.”
Claire steps forward, cupping my face with one hand, her thumb brushing lightly beneath my eye. “But I can now.” I swallow the lump rising in my throat and step back. “Stand there,” Claire points to the left of the mat. “Feet apart, shoulder width.”
