Page 9 of Pieces of Halves

“How do you know the witches?” I make another attempt to get to know her.

“My father does,” she responds and bites the inside of her lower lip.

“Who’s your father?” I ask, my tone light.

She inhales and swallows hard. Doing my best to pretend like I don’t notice her reaction, I keep watching her. Her fingers tremble a little as she gets up to sit by the headboard of the bed. Her father is a sore subject, it seems.

“Sometimes, I have nightmares, so just wake me up. I’ll snap out of it.” She changes the conversation. “There is only one bed. How would you like to sleep?” she asks, her voice perking up.

She periodically changes thesubject – as if to distract herself from thinking about something in particular. The feeling that something awful happened to her keeps nagging at me. I hate it. I want to know what is bothering her.

“Whatever you are comfortable with.” I inhale, slightly frustrated that she is not talking to me.

We just met. We are strangers, I remind myself.

“The bed is big, I’m comfortable sharing.” Her voice is chipper, and her body seems relaxed, but her eyes say something else.

She is not comfortable. Why lie then? Smiling lightly, I take a moment to think how to respond to that. I don’t want to overstep any boundaries, but I also want to respect her words.

“All right then. Sharing the bed it is then,” I mumble and make my way to the other side.

Sleeping next to her would not be a problem for me, but I worry about her. She lied – she is uncomfortable sharing the space. For some reason, her lack of trust hurts.

Strangers.She has no reason to trust me.

The sound coming from next to me is sopiercing and loud that I jerk awake, and my heart goes into my throat. Izzy is screaming to the point where her neck strains and her face turns red. I freeze and my throat constricts at the sight of her. Jumping off the bed, I run my hands through my hair, clueless aboutwhat to do. Holding her is my first instinct, but her movements are so jerky that I will have to restrain her.

Just wake me up. I’ll snap out of it.Her words echo in my head. How the fuck I am supposed to wake her up from this?

“Stop!” She thrashes, and I wince.

I need to hold her to let her know that she is safe.

“Do not touch her! Create a sound barrier. You don’t want anyone thinking strange things.”Tengu’s, my demon companion’s, voice echoes in my head through our link.

I hate it when he does this – speaks to me before announcing his presence. Tengu was given to me in a ring on my twelfth birthday. I don’t know who gave me the present, but it was on my bed when I got home one day. Ever since that day, we have been inseparable.

He is right. She is loud, and the walls here are thin. I create a bubble around us with a shielding invisible force, hiding her terror from the world. It feels dirty – silencing her pain to the world, and with all this power not being able to help her.

“Why can’t I hold her?” I growl at him through our mind link.

“She is not ready yet. You will hurt her more,”he answers with empathy in his voice.

“You see her dream?” I swallow.

“Yes.”His response is sad.

“So, I’m just supposed to watch her?”My chest hurts when she screams again, and tears pour down her face.

“Yes.”

There is a mixture of pain and anger in his voice that I can feel through our bond. Then, he is gone from my mind again.

Tengu may be a devious demon goblin, but he is old and has never failed to look out for me. Never has he taken care of someone else, so why is he helping her? Why is he looking at her nightmares when he normally doesn’t care about the suffering of others?

The pain I feel from watching her makes me feel like I am choking.

Witches.

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