Page 8 of Puck My Heart

Get. Your. Shit. Together.

I growled the words mentally at myself as she pried her hands free. A streak of blood smeared her face. My heartrate picked up as I checked her and the counter over. No cuts showed up, and no immediate danger as I focused on her face. After Tabitha and Benny yesterday I was on high alert in an instant.

The counter behind her was clear, and I couldn’t see a blade anywhere. Shit. Was she a self-harmer? My stomach flopped at the thought. Sol never mentioned it, but then, he might not know. Both of us were away from our families— his, I didn’t have a fucking family left—so often and for long enough that we barely knew their day to day functions. Had Anya slipped through some crack and none of us noticed?

“Anya?” I said quietly, running my thumbs over the insides of her wrists and breathing out a little easier when I found no new cuts or old scars. “Where’s this blood coming from?”

She shook harder in my arms, burrowing against me and pulling back at the same time. Something crunched underfoot. I glanced down and found her standing in a circle of shattered mug pieces.

“Jesus. What’d you drop?” I frowned. She’d been drinking out of the blue and pink striped thermos that featured a stack of anime characters I didn’t recognize. Suddenly I felt old.

Anya tried to yank back from me, but I wouldn’t let her, tucking her closer and trying to avoid the shattered ceramic beneath her feet.

“I’m sorry!” she burst out like a banshee, a shriek built of pure panic and fear that blasted straight at me.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me,” I muttered, gripping her waist through my jersey. The material folded in my hands as I lifted her lithe form, planting her luscious fucking behind on the counter. Something scraped on the surface. I reached behind her, pushing the thermos back. Steaming black coffee trickled over the lip where she’d already filled it to the brim. “What were you making? Yours is full, Annie.”

“It was for you.” Anya gripped the edge of the counter with whitened knuckles striped with red that didn’t seem to come from anywhere. “I’m sorry,” she whispered on repeat.

Like she couldn’t stop.

A tightness I recognized from way too recently dealing with Ben and helping Tabitha wound around my chest in a constriction that stole my breath.Fuck, no. Not her.I cupped her face and tilted her head back, encountering wide, white eyes. Her pupils were blown out, though in this case I didn’t think the fear she experienced was from today.

“It’s okay, it’s just me. Not gonna hurt you, ‘kay? You’re safe. I promise.” I stroked her cheek with my thumb until she nodded and breathed with me. My chest loosened as some of the tension dropped away from her and she sagged against my chest. “Canyou stay up here? I’m just gonna move some of these broken bits.”

“Icandoit.” Her words jumbled together as she tried to push down from the counter.

I pressed a hand to her stomach, easing her backward, and kicked the bigger shards aside carefully, finding a safe spot to stand in close to her. The rest I’d deal with later. Right now, she was more important. I crouched, running my fingers along the soles of her feet, and found the tiny cut. She didn’t flinch, but I felt the sharp, fine slice of ceramic embedded into her heel. So small that it wasn’t deep, just enough to make a mess, but she should have felt it. I pulled that free and fumbled about for a tea towel to clean my hand, keeping my other on her stomach, intent on making sure she stayed on that bench and didn’t tumble headfirst to the floor. No way could either of us handle that sort of additional chaos right now.

“Tell me about him.” I didn’t give her a chance to argue with me, and she needed to know I wouldn’t hurt her.

She stared at me, and for a moment I thought she hadn’t heard me at all. Then her lips parted and a single word came out on a whisper. “Peter.”

I nodded, stroking her cheek gently. She seemed to like that, or at least, didn’t mind the contact or throw me off. Her shivers subsided to a faint tremor. I took that as a good sign, hoping to hell that I wasn’t kidding myself that I could care for her. “Okay, so Peter the Asshole isn’t here right now. Is he?” Part of me wished very much that Peter would waltz his ass right into the kitchen so I could employ some of those moves Sol and I had practiced on each other over the years.

With a little less team side camaraderie, of course.

“No,” she whispered, her voice barely audible even at this close range.

“Good.”I’ll hunt that fucker down for what he’s done to you.I met her eyes and made that promise as her fear subsided a fraction. Anya’s hand rose, her fingers curling around my wrist, though she didn’t pull my touch away. “Tell me about him?” I made it a question this time, rather than an order.

“He was—” she shuddered, and I eased closer into her space, gathering her against me at the edge of the bench. A soft breath left her as she sank into my touch, resting her cheek in my palm. She let me take her weight in a display of trust that left my heart aching in my chest cavity. “Peter— We were supposed to be married this year.”

I started, and cursed myself internally. “I didn’t know that,” I murmured, trying to sound neutral, and not the controlling, possessive asshole I was fast becoming around her. “What happened?”

She let out a soft, albeit brittle sound. “He did. Peter liked to show off what he owned. That included me. And if things weren’t perfect, like…” Her voice trailed away, and a tear tracked from the corner of one eye to collect at the join of my fingers where I cupped her cheek.

I swallowed. “Like broken coffee mugs, huh?” I guessed.

“Yeah. Like that.” Her blunt, black and blue striped nails dug into my wrists. “I left him two months ago. He’s still fucking haunting me, Hux. Why can’t I just forget?”

I gathered her to me and let her cry into my chest, standing barefoot in a pile of broken ceramic mug and wished I had a magic answer for her. But there was no way to forget the pain that came with that sort of trauma. Not even time, though it theoretically the hurt was supposed to lessen.

I’d found that advice was utter bullshit. Lies others told you to ease their discomfort at witnessing your pain. So I held on, rocking her gently in my arms, and pressed my lips to the top of her head.

And said nothing at all.

I sat across the table from Anya and watched her nibble on toast like it was the least likely thing she wanted to put in her stomach, but I didn’t want to leave her alone. Making sure she ate something seemed a good enough reason to stay around. That, and coffee.

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