Page 48 of Palingenesis

My chest cracks open and warm wetness tracks down my face all over again.

Gods I’m a fucking mess.

I don’t even bother swiping it away this time when the doorbell alert flashes beside the light switch on the wall. Or when a meaty hand pushes open my bedroom door. And definitely not when the hands of a worried twink run all over me.

He brings the scent of pumpkin spice with him, bags under his eyes and furrowed brows.

“You look like shit,” I weakly sign to him and he huffs.

“I guess I dressed for the occasion. What are you doing?” he signs instead of what’s wrong, and my eyes get wetter.

“Thanks for coming,” I sign back, my movements small and clipped. “I’m fine, physically.”

Avery taps my temple with the questions tugging on his brows down. “Mentally.”

I blow a raspberry.

He chuckles but recovers quickly and makes himself comfortable beside me in the bed. Morgan is hovering hugely in the doorway, watching and waiting for either of us to clue him in to something. I can tell that there’s a big piece of him that hates how Avery’s shoulder brushes mine but he doesn’t mention it. I’m glad he doesn’t.

The connection is the only thing that’s managing to both hold me together and threatening to tear me apart.

“We’re going to help,” Avery tells me with his hands.

Nodding absently, I am only slightly filled with disbelief.

How do I know that this isn’t an illusion, too?

The thought has me lifting my glasses to dig the heels of my palms into my eye sockets hard enough that colors explode behind my eyelids, bursts of orange and red.

“There’s got to be some indication,” I sign and Avery waves in front of my face, telling me to explain. “A clue that I’m not making it all up.”

He still doesn’t get it because he’s beside me and not in front of me like he should be to properly see my hands, but I don’t make a fuss over it. He’s learning, and that’s more than anyone else has ever even tried in my life.

If this is a dream … do I really want to wake up?

If I do, will I lose … this? Whatever this is with Avery and Morgan?

As I climb off the bed and offer to make tea for these two, I can’t help but feel like the answer to that is a resounding no.

Chapter 26

Shannon

The sunlight strains through the slivers in the curtains and yet, I can’t shake the feeling of eyes on me. Steam has long since faded from our mugs, my eyelids beyond drooping, but I refuse to fall asleep again.

It’s unreasonable, I know that, but after hearing the rest of the story behind the legend of the Firebird, it’s the only thing that made sense. At least … until we find a way to break his focus on me.

Which requires one of two options: Either I give in and let him have me, or we find a way to kill it.

“You think he’ll find something?”

Morgan sighs, the crackle of it just loud enough for my devices to pick up, and joins me in peeking out the window.

“I know he will, I just …”

His gaze drifts somewhere behind me and a pang of jealousy slams into my chest.

Avery is slumped over his laptop, one eye barely open and hands clutching his mug like it’s a lifeline. And yet, Morgan looks at him like he placed the whole damn universe, not just the moon.