Page 33 of Bad Bunny
“Youhardly slept last night as well,” Nora says. “Don’t think I didn’t notice all that yawning you did in the car. Besides…” Her hands ball on her hips. “I’m not anyone’s responsibility.”
“While you’re with me,” I say, “you are.”
Mine to guard. Mine to protect.
The words rise, unbidden, but I swallow them down. I may not have known Nora Hayes for long, but I already understand she is not a woman who yields. Not easily, anyway.
Pushing further would gain me nothing.
“Very well,” I say at last.
The words taste like surrender, though I do not mean them as such.
“If you will not sleep alone, then we will share the bed.” I walk over and pull my side of the sheets down. “We’ll put pillows between us.”
I stay true to my word, carefully constructing a fortress of pillows around myself with another pile shoved to Nora so she can arrange them however she likes.
It’s not until I lay down that I realize how right she is. Fatigue settles over me in a crushing wave, heavy and inescapable. My father’s death. The flight from my uncle. It all catches up to me. I am exhausted, worn out both emotionally and physically. It doesn’t help that I’m constantly wondering what’s happening in my kingdom right now. Wondering what my uncle is up to. Who’s suffering because I’m not there to protect them.
The mattress dips, and my wall of pillows trembles when Nora climbs in on her side.
I go still.
The barrier of pillows between us should be sufficient. It’s what I requested. What I insisted upon.
And yet…it changes nothing.
I can feel the heat of her through the thin space that separates us. Hear the slow rhythm of her breathing, the rustle of the sheets as she rolls over.
Toward me?
Or away?
I have done my job too well. I can’t see her over the pillow wall, and yet her scent lingers on the air, warm, clean, and uniquely hers.
The rabbit in me lifts its nose and scents. I freeze, my heart speeding.
My kind’s sense of smell is…difficult to describe to those who do not share it. It is extraordinarily sensitive, so precise that we can detect the pheromones released during moments of strong emotion. In my land, we’re trained from childhood to use it as others might use sight or sound.
To track fear. Illness. Aggression.
To detect a lie before it is spoken. To know when danger stands too close.
It takes skill and patience to use that sense. It’s not something I can tune in to when I’m on the run, active, or distracted, but here, in the stillness of the hotel room, with the blinds drawn and my vision dimmed, my sense of smell rises up and explores like it is its own living thing.
Carefully it bridges across the divide of bed and pillows.
Searching.
Until it finds her.
She’s awake. I can hear it in her breathing, but, more than that, I can scent it.
She’s awake, and she’s…
No…
Maybe…
