Page 150 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

As if in one final bit of resistance, her legs crumble underneath her, pulling them both to the ground in front of Boltiex’s body, and she scrambles her hands to her neck.

There’s no leash. There’s no bond. There’s nothing.

Just her own skin and her blood from the cuts.

She gasps, loud in the silence, before she twists her handon Gurlien’s collar, holding him against her, holding him in place.

He flinches, before his arms go up around her, clutching her to his chest.

She still can’t feel him, can’t feel the awareness of him, nothing, but she buries her face into his chest so she can hear his heartbeat.

His arms tighten around her, like he’s about to lose his grip. “Ambra,” he whispers, her name a vow upon his lips. “Ambra, talk to me. Are you okay?”

She’s not, there’s something wild and terrible and terrifying without anything around her neck, but she presses her cheek against him.

Slow, his hand swipes the dust out of the shaved side of her head, gentle, and with a shock, she realizes there are tears on her face.

“I’m…” she chokes out, but her words escape her.

She’s free. She’s out of their control, she’s out of everyone’s control. She can run away, she can flee, she can do whatever she likes for the rest of her days for however long she exists. For however long it takes for the body to age around her.

Tender, oh so tender, Gurlien pulls away, cupping her chin his hands. His glasses still lay broke to the side, but his brown eyes flicker across her face like he could still read her like a book.

And they sit like that, limbs a crumpled heap on the floor, staring at each other, for a long moment.

“You’re okay?” he says, the question an undercurrent in his tone. “Please, say something.”

Swallowing, she nods, though it’s fully incomplete, and tightens her hand on his collar. “You’re hurt,” she ventures, and her voice wobbles. “He hurt you.”

“And something invisible killed him and then kidnapped his daughter, yes,” Gurlien says, and just enough of his normal words filter in, settling something inside of her. “Do we need to go after them? Do we need to go save a child now?”

Ambra pulls in another breath, letting her mind wander out to that brief encounter, as far away as it seems. “They said,” she starts, then has to gasp for more air, “that they would take her to her mother.”

It all seems so remote, now that there’s no leash around her neck, no control in her future, and she can do anything.

Her hand flutters to her neck again, and Gurlien sits back on his heels. He’s still bleeding sluggishly from the cut on his brow, and they’ll have to clean the dust out of it.

“Is the leash still there?” he asks, serious.

“No,” she says, and the single word somehow makes it real. “No, I can…I can go anywhere. I can…I can do anything. There’s no one on the leash, nothing…”

There’s something on Gurlien’s face, some sudden vulnerability that she can’t quite parse.

“Anywhere,” he echoes, and his voice is foreign a bit. “Anything you want.”

Like he’s worried she’s going to leave him behind.

In a split second, she gapes at him, before she throws the pain, the grossness, the shock aside, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him.

He shifts, pulling her onto his lap, his lips on her like she’s the very air in the world.

“I can do anything,” she says, between kisses, punctuating her words with touches to him. “I can go anywhere. Do anything.”

Everything still hurts, but she twines her fingers into his hair, keeping him there with her.

And he kisses her back like she’s the only water in the world and he’s been left bereft. Like he’s a starving man and she’s the only thing he can consume.

“I can stay with you,” she says, pulling away, and his lips are shining, relief in his eyes. “I can do anything.”

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