Page 5 of Knot Shattered
Henry’s voice cracked through the chaos like a slap. Familiar. Annoyed. Grounding.
My skin felt tight with sweat and grit. I crossed to the speaker, thumbed the volume down, and then hit pause. The silence that followed was immediate and heavy. Like someone had dropped a curtain between me and the noise I’d been hiding behind.
The world was too quiet without it. I turned towards the side door of the garage. Henry stood in the garage doorway, arms crossed, wearing that look I knew too well. The one that lived somewhere between exasperated and worried, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to shake me or wrap me in a blanket.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at me, then flicked his eyes past me. His eyes landed on the sculpture. I saw the change in his face before he said a word. The subtle tightening of his jaw. The way his throat worked like he’d swallowed something bitter. He didn’t like seeing her. He never had. But he didn’t tell me to stop. He never did. It was something I loved about Henry.
“She’s coming along,” he said finally, voice lower now. Gentler. Almost like he was afraid to speak too loud and crack something.
“Yeah,” I murmured, turning back toward the statue. My fingers itched to reach for the chisel again, even though my arms shook. “She’s still screaming, though.”
There was a beat of silence behind me. Henry didn’t respond. He never did when I talked like that.
Not because he didn’t care. But because he did. Because he didn’t have words for the kind of ache I kept carving into the marble day after day. He didn’t pretend to fix it. Didn’t feed me platitudes.
He just stood there supporting me. Like he always did.
Henry stepped further into the garage, the door groaning shut behind him like even it was tired of being here. He looked worn, lines deeper around his eyes, shoulders tense like he was bracing for something. Or maybe I just felt young in that moment. Not young in the way people meant when they called you lucky or soft or full of life. But young in the worst possible way. Raw. Bruised. Like something still unfinished.
“You eat today?” he asked, arms crossed, one brow lifting like he already knew I hadn’t.
I gave a one-shouldered shrug and turned my eyes toward the floor. “Does coffee count?”
His sigh was long and worn thin, the kind of exhale that came from too many years dealing with bruised hearts wrapped in stubborn bones. He didn’t press. Not yet.
“Not even a little.”
I didn’t answer. My throat had gone tight again, like my body was trying to protect me from my own voice.
He let the silence stretch for a few heartbeats, then stepped up beside me. I didn’t look at him, even as his hand reached for mine, just gently enough to take the chisel from my grip. My fingers resisted at first, curled so tight around the handle that they ached. But Henry didn’t force it. He just waited, steady, patient, until I let go.
He set the chisel down on the worktable, and for a long moment, he didn’t say anything. His eyes found the sculpture again, his jaw tightening as he studied her.
“She’s angry,” he said softly, like he was afraid saying it too loud would set her off.
“She’s tired,” I murmured, voice hoarse. “She just wants to rest.”
I hadn’t planned to say that. It fell out of me, slipped through my lips, and spilled into the quiet like it had been waiting.
Henry turned toward me, expression unreadable. His brows were pulled together, not in judgment. Just in that way he always looked when he didn’t have the right words but wanted to find them anyway. “You sleep at all last night?”
I huffed out a laugh, breath catching somewhere between humor and exhaustion. “A couple of hours. Nightmares don’t really care about REM cycles.”
He didn’t flinch. Just nodded, slowly, and stepped a little closer. One of his hands came up to the back of my neck, his thumb brushing over the nape. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t meant to be. It was grounding. Familiar. It was him.
“I can sit outside the room again,” he said. Not a question. Just an offering.
I swallowed hard, blinking fast. “You shouldn’t have to.”
He leaned in a little, his voice dipping lower. “It’s not about what I have to do, Odette. It’s about what I will do.” His words rumbled through me like distant thunder. “And I’ll sit outside that damn door every night until you sleep for more than two hours without crying, shaking, or screaming.”
That cracked something. Not fully. But enough to sting. Enough to make my eyes burn.
“I’m so fucking tired, Henry,” I whispered, voice small and sharp around the edges. “I don’t even feel like me anymore. I feel like I’m still there. Even when I’m here. Even when I’m carving, it’s like I never got out.”
He didn’t say anything at first. Just wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in tight. A silent, crushing bear hug that swallowed me whole. I buried my face in his chest and breathed in that Henry smell—leather, dust, coffee, and something warm I could never name but always recognized.
“You’re not in that basement anymore, baby girl,” he said into my hair. “You made it out. You fucking survived. And I swear—on every god and every ghost—I’ll make sure those bastards never touch you again.”
