Page 142 of Visions of Darkness

It was like she’d just been exposed to the most horrific scene, which was insane, considering the grisly shit we witnessed every night.

The door drifted shut as the woman and child passed, and the second they rounded the end of the hall, I pushed back open the door, feet eating up the space before I had Aria in my arms.

She was shaking.

Fuck, she was shaking so hard.

Terror gripped me by the heart, by the throat, by this desperation. “What’s wrong?”

I angled back, taking her cheek in my hand, bending down to peer into the roiling depths of her eyes. “What happened?”

I was trying to make contact.

To snap her out of whatever had her twisted.

“I . . .”

She couldn’t even form words.

I startled when the door swung open, and an older lady fumbled to a stop in the doorway. I was pretty sure she was wavering between running to the front for help or pummeling me to death with her giant purse.

“Are you okay?” she asked Aria.

Aria managed to nod, and she finally gathered herself enough to speak. “I just wasn’t feeling well, so he came in to help me.”

The woman frowned like she was questioning the validity of it, and I didn’t hesitate to loop an arm around Aria’s waist so I could haul her the hell out of there. By the time we got up front, they were callingour number, and I snatched our bags and drinks, because there was no chance that Aria was going to be able to sit at a table and act like everything was fine.

She kept her head down as I ushered her outside, and we hurried across the lot to where the car was parked. I helped her in, then rounded to my side and slipped into the driver’s seat. I kept glancing at her as she tugged at the end of her sweater like she might be in physical pain.

I reached out and spread my hand over the tight fist she had hers in, hoping I could assuage whatever the fuck was going down, calm her, give her peace, all while losing faith that I had the capacity.

“What’s going on, Aria?” My words were jagged.

“I ...” She swiveled her attention to look over at me. Agony bled through her expression. “My family.”

She choked on it, and there was so much torment in it that I nearly came apart right there.

My brow furrowed as I lost myself to her grief. “I know, Aria. I know you’re worried about them, but we already talked about this.”

Her head shook. “You don’t understand.”

I was going to respond that I understood perfectly before she was hugging her arms over her chest and a sob was erupting from her throat. “I ... I thought I heard a voice last night when we were in Faydor. I thought I heard the Ghorl whispering to my father. But it was so far away from where we were that I couldn’t be certain. But I swear, Pax, I swear I saw him hit my mother.”

I shifted in the seat so I could fully face her, my hand on her leg as I tried to calm her, though I doubted there was much of a chance of that. Not when she was caught in a turmoil so great it didn’t fully belong to her.

This pain was bigger than the both of us.

Gasping over a cry, she fumbled through the explanation. “But I felt safe with you this morning. When I woke up in your arms. It felt like it was exactly where I was supposed to be. Even if it was only for that moment, it felt perfect, Pax.”

My hand curled on her thigh, and my chest was squeezing tight as my lungs compressed.

And still, I didn’t say anything. I just waited for her to explain. To give me this since the only thing I wanted to do was hold everything for her. Be her buoy, her raft, her safe place when I was sure she was getting sucked into the depths of despair. An ocean of desperation swallowing her whole.

“And then, when we were ordering ...” She hiccupped, then tightened her arms like she was doing her best to hold herself together. “The cashier. I kept seeing my sister’s face in hers, and I swore she was asking for help.”

Ice slicked down my spine, and a cold dread seeped out to saturate every cell in my body.

“I went into the restroom to try to gather myself because, obviously, I had to finally be losing it, right? I mean, I had to really be seeing things. Hallucinating. Then this woman came in ...”

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