Page 30 of Isle of Pain

While I go about my mundane tasks, Nico silently watches, his arms crossed over his chest and a leg over the other, leaning against the doorframe that doesn’t hold a door. He shouldn’t be as sinfully distracting.

I pretend to ignore him until I can’t avoid the inevitable anymore.

“I’m gonna go to bed. I’m taking Ember with me.”

“Of course. Can I do anything for you?” he asks, then comes closer and looks at Ember, awake in my arms, when I say no. “She looks like you.”

My chin trembles and a shiver courses through my limbs. Instead of letting it go, I take a deep breath in and swallow my tears.

“You don’t have to hide your sadness here, Marie,” Nico says before leaving to his bedroom. The door closes with a soft click.

When I get into bed, my daughter next to me in her own, a passing thought that I never had that beer comes to mind but before I can make sense of it, it’s already gone.

17

NICO

LUNA MIA

Iwake up covered in sweat. My room is dark but the moonlight shines from the open window. The silence in the house is eerie and I strain to hear my guests on the other side of the wall. There’s faint movement but I don’t know if that’s normal or not.

It’s like fire still licks my skin. I take three rounds of deep inhale and exhale. A ritual that’s as familiar as it is painful. My hand itches to make the person responsible pay before I have to remind myself that it already happened.

The sheets are damp and I get up, stripping the bed and walking to the laundry room to get them into the laundry machine. I’ll start it in the morning; now that I have a guest, I can’t live during the night like I usually do. I want to know what Marie looks like when she sleeps. Is she as peaceful as Ember? Does she frown?

I pull on a pair of grey sweatpants and advance on the bedroom door, slightly ajar. Pushing it open, I stand there frozen as I survey the room. Ember sleeps soundly in her cot but Marie seems to struggle against her own demons. Her head whips sideto side and she whimpers low. I know the feeling all too well and my gut stirs.

I approach the bed and, not for the first time, the need to touch her almost overwhelms me. Years of conditioning and training help me remain in control. Though I’d wished she’d take it from me.

“Marie,” I call out but she doesn’t wake up, turning away from me and curving herself into a ball.

I know first hand what it’s like to have nightmares. To be stuck in your own head, knowing intimately that you’re reliving a memory and that nothing is real but being incapable of waking up. I call out her name, louder this time, bedding a knee on top of her bed. I don’t mind if Ember wakes up. She’ll fall back asleep, but Marie needs to get out of her own head.

“Marie!” I raise my voice and shake her shoulder, her skin soft under my hand. Before I can fully get comfortable with the new feeling, she gasps as she sits up.

“Where’s Ember?” she asks in a panicked tone.

“In her cot. She’s safe. You’re safe.”

Slumping slightly, she raises her hands to cover her face, shaking it slightly, then rubbing her eyes.

“I’m sorry I woke you up, Nico. I’ve always had trouble sleeping without…” She doesn’t finish her sentence but I don’t need her to voice the name of the person she loved most. “I don’t sleep well by myself.”

She fidgets with her hands, her soft top revealing her left shoulder. Without thought, the fingers of my right hand travel the distance between us. I pull the fabric back up with my thumb and index finger, grazing Marie’s skin. Our breaths itch in tandem.

What comes out of my mouth next isn’t like me but I wouldn’t take it back for the world.

“Want me to sleep here with you?”

She sputters and I smirk. I’m not propositioning her again. But I could if I knew she’d take the bait. The uncertainty of our situation right now is too intense, too deep. I don’t like not knowing. I want to lay myself bare before Marie but she’s not ready to receive me.

“Get your head out of the gutter, Miss Marie. I’m only offering my presence.”

“I know”, she huffs.

It’s adorable. A sign of her youth. I’m not much older than her. Twenty six to her twenty, but the blood on my hands and the need for vengeance in my system aged me beyond the number written on my passport. Marie has always been sheltered.

I stay silent and let her decide. It doesn’t take long before she scoots over to one side of the bed and gives me an order. “Get in.”

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