Page 47 of Chaos

It takes a minute for it to settle in.

I’m being carried. I’m warm and clean. The air is full of fresh peppermint and clean pine, and the steady thump of a massive heart is under my ear.

“I wanted you in our bed tonight. Auden hogs all the covers, and he kicks,” he murmurs, passing through the living area and into our room, where he sets me down on the crisp, clean bed. “And Sheila said I should check on you.”

Moonlight spills through the windows.

There’s no awfulyetlurking around the edge of tomorrow.

Only Yorke standing over me in the dark, and the sound of Beast panting as he follows us anxiously.

“Do you want light?” Yorke asks.

“No.” My head hurts anyway. “The moonlight is enough. What time is it?”

“Nine thirty. Sorry for waking you.”

“You don’t need to apologize.” I flop back on a pillow. “It’s my fault I’m so jumpy.”

It’s so quiet I can hear his watch ticking.

“Ben did a cavity search.” It comes bursting out sharply. He goes rigid, and whatever’s going on inside him, I can’t handle it, so I look down at my hands. “That was the worst it got. They didn’t hit me or kick me or cut me. I did this to my own hands. It wasn’t good down there, but there was no waterboarding or oxygen deprivation or starvation or beatings with bats. It could have been a lot worse.”

It’s subtle, but every part of him just got sharper. And if I doubted that he was struggling with anger at me earlier, I was wrong.

He’s pissed, and probably pissed that he’s pissed. But I’m not apologizing for what I did. He’d have been a mess if he’d shot Ephie. I’d do it again.

“Just because it could have been worse, doesn't make it nothing,” he says in slow motion. “I have no idea what I’d feel if he did that to me.”

I flinch, remembering that moment and hating it.

“I didn’t say it was nothing. I just meant, they didn’t … anyway … we’re … we’re awake and we’re together and we’re alone. So, if you have questions, ask them.”

He’s quiet for a minute. “What did you think about in there?”

I expected him to ask for more details, but maybe that’s not Yorke. Or maybe I expected him to push me to apologize for giving myself up, say I feel bad that I did it even though I don’t—but again, that’s not Yorke.

So I force myself to pause and answer the question rather than react to the rage stirring inside me conjured up by the memory of Ben and his fingers.

“Mostly I just tried to think like you and figure out how to escape. I listened to the pigeons—which Renata said not to release—and I stared at the light through the ceiling.” I wipe my nose. “They never hurt me, Yorke. Not really. You have to believe that.”

His eyes go black, like there’s no amber left. “They did hurt you.”

“Not like waterboarding or bamboo shoots or anything.”

“No, they just threw you down some stairs, starved you, nearly let you die of an infection, scraped up, concussed, shoved their fucking fingers inside you. That’s torture, Frankie, and it would mess with anyone’s mind.”

Something about the way he says it, has my chest opening up, and like that, my mouth starts moving, words start forming.

I talk.

Slowly at first.

Then faster, when he climbs onto the bed, behind me, big spoon to my little, strong chest to my back, giving me theprivacy of not having to feel his eyes on me as it all comes out.

I tell him about the cavity search, and Scraggle groping me, and jerking off on my food, and about Ephie bringing me the ointment and Renata saying Ben had to die and the pigeons had to stay. I tell him what Colleen told me that afternoon, about the dead soldiers and how guilty I feel. I tell him everything.

Almost.