Page 87 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
His cruel amusement withered before my eyes.
“Well, guess what, honey—that holy man whose name you keep taking in vain—he ain’t going to forgive you for this any more than your own conscience will. Because I’m not the bitch you want me to be. I’m a good person whose only real hatred in life is sad endings in books. I love and respecteveryoneuntil they give me cause not to. Because that’s how I was raised—by a wonderful, loving, open minded Danann feyr, who your evil boss hadkilled!”
Pete gulped as my eyes welled, my rage and sorrow brimming over, unconstrained.
Let him see. He deserves these tears.
“And forwhat? For some petty grudge?” I ratcheted to my feet and kicked dirt into the flames, sending embers his way.
Pete flinched back. Sionna skittered aside, wide-eyed and blinking.
“How dare you judgeme!” I fisted my hands. “You—harbinger!” I then stalked from the fire—as far as my damn tether allowed.
That night, I wept for hours into my book bag—the only thing I had to use for a pillow, as Briar had shouldered all our bedding supplies. I didn’t even have a blanket.
My stomach burned in hunger, and my bones shuddered with cold inside my cloak as I whispered my sorrows to the brilliant stars above, hoping they’d tell Daddy how much I missed him. I imagined his protective arms hugging me in my pain, comforting me in my desolation. Then a chill would creep up my spine, and I’d know I was alone. So alone. My tears gushed anew each time.
Then, amid my misery, came a rustling in the grass.
“Sionna.” Pete turned in his bedroll by the banked fire. “Lie down.”
Her claws scraped over tree roots, crackled through leaves.
“Sionna,” Pete hissed. “Come back here.”
She ignored him, and he kept hissing. I wondered where she was going until I felt the pressure of her nose on my boots.
I gasped, peering from my cloak to find reflective eyes watching me.
Sionna sniffed me from my feet to my face, then lapped my pouring tears, her tongue warm and wet.
More tears squeezed past my eyelids as I giggled, grasping her furry face. “You’re just the sweetest,” I sniffled. “Did you come to check on me?”
She responded with another lick, settling in the grass beside me.
“Turncoat.” Pete harrumphed, snapping his cloak back over his shoulder.
We both ignored him.
“You know, I’m a good snuggler.” I opened my cloak to her. “At least that’s what my dog, Novus, used to say.” Another tear trailed down my cheek—for him. “You want to see why?”
The tip of her tail fluttering, Sionna army-crawled into my bubble and relaxed.
I finally fell asleep that night, my eyes swollen, my face chapped, but I was toasty and warm in my heart—where the snuff hound’s head nestled.
Sixteen
WhenIawokethenext morning to the resolve on Pete’s face, I knew my guilt trip the night before had failed. He was taking me to Gentian, no matter his shame. Which was totally gnawing at his peace-of-mind; he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
So, I resolved myself to something too—a tactic this self-conscious, socially anxious beyn would never consider unless driven to it. Simply put, I was going to irritate thefuckout of Pete until he couldn’t stand being near me. Because the more time I spent away from him, the more time I’d have to plot an escape.
So, after relieving myself that morning, I plopped down by the fire he’d rekindled and whined in my most maudlin voice, “I’mhuuungry.” The complaining progressed from there. About everything. For days.
The suns were too hot, the nights too damp. He never fed me enough. I was habitually thirsty. My back ached from riding in the wagon but walking only gave me blisters. Talking to him exasperated me, yet I hated the incessant quiet. At meals, I whined incessantly about the woeful blandness of his food. When once he finally barked that I should quit bellyaching and eat, I’d retorted, “I’ll quit when you find me some ketchup, you scrub!” Because of the cantir incident, I made him run a perimeter check everysingletime I peed—which happened as much as I could physically manage given that he was such “a Scrooge McGoose with the water canteen.”
The colonial remnant that he was, Pete had no clue what that meant, but by the way he slapped his water skin into my chest, I could tell the reference annoyed him to no end. He probably guessed it a cultural epithet against the Irish. Guzzling the entirety of his water as I skipped along beside him, I snickered to myself.
If he only knew—
