Page 72 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

“Have you cried before?” he asks, which isn’t helpful. “I’m not talking about tears. I’m talking about actually sitting down and crying.”

“I know the body did,” Ambra replies truthfully, before pulling herself away. “More than I knew why.”

Shakily, she reaches for the glass of water, and it’s cool against the fingertips.

Gurlien watches her like a hawk, and there’s a smear of her blood against the collar of his undershirt.

“Crying is one of the ways the human body processes stress chemicals,” he says matter of factly. “Yes, it’s emotions, but it’s biological. You’ll be dealing with it again and it won’t be some sort of failing.”

That helps, so she nods, washing the blood out of her mouth with a grimace, and weighs getting out of the safety to make her way to the shower. To get the blood off of her, to focus on healing the skin on her neck and the stinging in her eyes while under hot water. To peel off the sweaty clothing sticking unpleasantly to her skin.

“Tell me,” Gurlien starts, and all her attention snaps to him, laser focused, “what exactly were they trying to do?”

He’s rubbing his hand along his wrist, right where the leash is still tied.

“They tried to take me,” she murmurs. “And you stopped them.”

“More specific,” he requests. “Were they trying to gain control? To force you to teleport to them? What was it?” At her blank look, he sighs. “I want to get familiar with the specificities. So I can block them better.”

“Teleport,” she replies curtly, putting her own hand onthe leash and tugging it slightly, to generate the sensation on him. “Like snapping a rope around a dog.”

He blanches but recovers well, ducking his head. “They call you that?”

“When they called me anything at all,” Ambra replies darkly.

He watches her, like he’s debating telling her something, and she can’t parse it together. Her curiosity worn out by the competing pulls against her neck, all her brain seems to be able to do is just…spin.

Ambra stands, testing her weight on her knees, and they wobble annoyingly.

“My head hurts,” she announces, as authoritatively as she can. “My head hurts and I feel so completely gross.” Completely undercutting herself, she scrubs at the tears on her cheeks, and her face is still too damp.

“I’m not shocked,” Gurlien replies, then rubs his own forehead, grabbing one of the protein bars. “Eat something?”

That sounds like the worst possible idea, and she scowls at him, before something twists inside of her and she sighs, bracing herself on the bed so she doesn’t slump forward.

“Thank you,” she says, and there’s something horrible about it, about once again finding weakness. “Thank you. You…you saved me. I think.”

His lips part to respond, but she turns on her heel and all but stumbles towards the shower.

19

After the shower, she crawls right back into the bed, her head pounding, and flexes her power across the room to plunge the lights off in one large movement.

Gurlien doesn’t say anything, just turning on the one desk lamp to illuminate his reading with a small motion. It’s not passive aggressive, it’s not denying her the want for darkness, instead just a tiny movement for himself.

The light spills out the large floor, just enough to send a shadow of his silhouette across the wall, and that too is something comforting. That even with the darkness she so desperately wants, there’s still a hint of him in her vision.

With exhaustion pressing down against her body and dragging her eyelids to close, she curls up on the bed, shuffling so she’s under the blankets the best she can, and tries to sleep.

In the smallhours of the night, she drifts back up towards awareness, the sleep clinging to her like a fog on a lake, but it’s just Gurlien climbing into the other side of the bed, whisper soft in the darkness.

Not a threat at all, and she drifts back to sleep within moments.

She awakesin the morning with a start, and sun streams through the windows, piercing through her eyelids and stabbing her in the brain.

Gurlien’s arm is tight around her middle, his body warm under the blankets, and he’s still breathing deep, still asleep.

Ambra jerks slightly, before getting the body under her control, and blinks up at the big room.

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