Page 32 of Torment Me Knot
“We'll move it,” I murmur back. “After. We'll figure it out.”
Espie looks at the staircase the way she looked at the porch steps. Like it's Everest. Like it might kill her.
“I can carry you,” I offer, voice soft. “Either of you. Both of you.”
Espie's eyes snap to mine. The fear in them hardens into defiance. Her jaw sets and she shakes her head once. She's going to climb under her own power.
I step back. “Okay. Whatever you want to do.”
The first stair costs her. Her thigh trembles, her grip on the banister turning her knuckles bloodless. Aubrey steps with her, his hand on her lower back, steadying her when she sways. His legs shake too. His breath comes in shallow pants I hear from where I stand at the bottom.
Three stairs. Four. Espie stops, head bowed, chest heaving.
“You're doing so well. Keep going,” Sera says from behind me. “Don't look up. Just take the next step. That’s all you have to do.”
Espie lifts her foot, places it on the next stair, and pulls herself up. Aubrey follows. Their clothes shift with each movement, too big, too loose, showing too much of the bones underneath.
I want to scoop them both up. Carry them somewhere warm, somewhere with food and nobody who'll hurt them. My hands curl into fists at my sides. I stay still.
Another step. Espie's legs buckle and Aubrey catches her, wrapping an arm around her waist, taking her weight against his side. They stand there for a long moment, breathing together. Then they keep climbing.
Twenty pain-filled minutes to climb two flights of stairs. I climb after them, Lex and Ezra and Sera trailing behind. By the time they reach the top both of them are shaking hard and I’m out of my damned mind. I don’t know how they’re still on their feet.
At least they can rest here. The nest room is at the end of the hall. I rush past them to the door.
Sera makes a choked sound. “No! Stop!”
It’s too late. I’ve already cracked the door open. Espie's scent turns sharp, gardenia curdling to something sour and acidic. Fear. Not the manageable kind. Beside her, Aubrey makes a sound. Small. Wounded. The first vocal sound I've heard from him in weeks, and it's pain. He tightens his grip on Espie's hand so hard his knuckles go white.
“Shit.Shit!I’m sorry! I… thought this would be different.” I slam the door shut.Fuck, I’m such an idiot.I’ll berate myself later, try to salvage the situation. “Not here. That's fine. There’s a bedroom. Come with me.”
I take them down the hall to the spare room. The one nobody uses. Plain queen bed, beige walls. It's a guest room. Generic. Forgettable.
The omegas shake as they enter, but theyenter. I stay by the door. So does Ezra. So does Lex. Sera slips in behind us and presses her back to the wall, arms crossed, every line of her body taut with the same restraint I'm fighting.
The room smells like nothing. Dust. Faint staleness. No pack-scent. No Alpha-scent. Nothing designed to comfort. Espie's shoulders drop half an inch. Aubrey's death-grip on her hand loosens slightly. The sharp edges of their fear-scent dull, gardenia going soft again, cedar losing its bite.
The nothing is working where the something failed.
Then Espie looks up. Her violet eyes track my position in the doorway, measuring distance. Her gaze lands on me and stays, the kind of look that takes inventory. She's terrified of me.
Aubrey looks up too. His hazel-green eyes find mine. Lost and terrified and everything I don’t want to see reflected in eyes that have seen the worst.He looks at me like I'm the thing that's going to hurt him.
I put space between us, make myself smaller. Slow movements. I keep backing up until I'm in the hallway. Ezra and Lex follow. Sera slips out last. Her eyes are wet and she drops her gaze to floor and neither of us says anything about it.
“Come here, Espie,” Aubrey whispers. Barely audible.
He pulls the duvet off, and drags it to the corner behind the bed, out of direct sightline from the door. The corner furthest from us. He's moving. He's deciding. He looks at a space and thinksthat's where I want to beand makes it happen.
There was nobody home behind his eyes. He was there but he wasn't, a body going through the motions of existing, and all of us learned to work around the absence like you learn to work around a missing step. Now he's rearranging furniture. Now he's building something. Now he's here.
I press the heel of my hand against the doorframe and hold on. Six months. Every morning I told myself today might be the day and every evening I told myself tomorrow. Now it's today and he's in there and I'm out here and I have absolutely no idea what the next step is.
He arranges the duvet on the floor. Espie joins him, and together they adjust the duvet until something about it finally feels right. They settle into the corner and curl around each other.
Everything I know says this is wrong. They need warmth, comfort. They need alpha scent and soft materials and the feeling of being protected.
These omegas are hiding in a corner with a single duvet. As far from the door as they can get. As far from us. So much for the research.
