The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [96]
“It took me longer than it should have to search and when I finally came back …” He struggles away from me and sits on the edge of the bed. I turn to see his head in his hands as he tugs at his hair. “When I came back she was dead. And the boy …”
I move to sit behind him, circling my arms around his shoulders, holding him together.
“The boy was just sitting there pulling at her and crying for her to wake up. He was tugging at her dead body, sobbing, and I didn’t know what to do. They were the only ones in the building. They’d already cut their bridge and there was nothing. No one else around to help them or take the boy.”
The moonlight outside casts sharp shadows under his eyes and along his jaw. He gets out of the bed and kneels in front of me, twisting the blankets violently in his fingers. “I didn’t know what to do, Annah. I didn’t know. I gave him food but he wouldn’t stop crying and I didn’t know what to do with him. I couldn’t leave him there alone. Not without his mother.”
He grabs my hands, everything about him desperate. “I tried to save him. I tried to carry him away. To somewhere they could take care of him. But the Mudo …”
And suddenly I know what he’s going to say and my heart skips.
“It was so cold I thought they’d be slowed. I thought I could make it. I thought I could run with him and bring him here.” Tears course down his face.
“It’s been so long since I’ve had to deal with the Mudo. You have to understand, I’m so used to them ignoring me. I’d forgotten …” He shakes his head. “They were on me too fast. There were too many for me to get away. I tried to hold him away from them.”
He’s shuddering uncontrollably. “Oh, God, he was screaming and crying and I was trying to keep him safe. That’s all I was doing was trying to save his life and they got him. They got him.”
He buries his head in my lap, sobbing. “I couldn’t save him, Annah.” His voice is tortured and muffled. “How can I take care of you and Elias and Gabry if I couldn’t save that child?”
I bend over him and press my lips to his temples. “It’s okay, Catcher, we’re safe,” I lie.
He raises his head, shaking it slowly. “All I could think is what if it were you? What if you were the one I’d killed?”
He places his hands on either side of me on the bed, pushing himself up. But not away. His chest presses against my knees and then he’s leaning over me.
I start to fall back, to shift away but he puts his hand behind my neck, his fingertips grazing my pulse.
“I can’t lose you, Annah.” His face hovers in front of me. “I won’t lose you.”
And then his lips are on mine.
It’s the warmth I feel first. The pure heat of him when he opens his mouth as if to devour me. There’s such urgency—such a hunger between us—born of a need to be something to someone.
His other hand scorches down my back, pressing between my shoulder blades to pull me to him until there’s nothing between us, no air or breath to separate us.
I taste who he is and was and together we fall back onto the bed. I shove my hands into his hair, pulling him tighter—always tighter. We breathe each other. We are the other person in that moment—nothing distinct about us except the same desire.
He pulls back and we both gasp for air as he rolls to his side, still pressed against me. With the pad of his thumb he follows the curve of my cheek, the angle of my jaw.
Not my scars, but everything else. Everything whole.
I realize he’s shaking. I cover his hand with mine. “What’s wrong?” I ask him.
He looks at me, really looks at me. “I’m terrified,” he whispers. “Of us. Of hurting you.”
I lick my lips. “I’m terrified of being hurt,” I admit.
Before I can stop him he pushes away and walks to the window, grabbing the back of his neck as he always does when he’s worried and afraid. I perch on the edge of the bed, looking at him. At his reflection in the night sky.
“My sister Cira