Page 4 of Memories Like Fangs
The plate I was holding slipped from my hands as I grasped for stability. It shattered against the kitchen tile. It broke into clean, hard shards of ceramic, splintering like ice breaking apart.
I never dropped things.
I was always so careful.
But, I wasn’t here anymore.
A distant part of me heard everyone jump in the dining room as I reached out through our bond, tugging on the line and connecting her heart to mine for any response.
There was none.
Mama was at my side in an instant, blurring over with a super speed of her own. Her questions were muffled like I was underwater, “Quinn-Quinn? Baby love, what happened? Are you okay?”
Her eyes, mirroring my own, were wide with concern, scanning me, searching for a wound or an answer. I couldn’t provide her with one. I was too busy sending all the love and calm I could to Byrd. We may be drowning, but, fuck, if I wasn’t going to still fight to keepmi vidaafloat with my dying strength and breath.
Byrd, I’m coming. Hold on.
I didn’t remember what excuse I gave my mother. Something short. Something forgettable. I didn’t stay long enough to see if she believed me.
I was already blurring past her and the others to get upstairs to where I felt my girl. I was moving faster than I ever had before, but I still pushed as much reassurance and love as I could through our bond. I didn’t care that it was being drowned by the noise. I had to do something until I was there. Even if it took a few seconds, I needed her to know she wasn’t alone.
When I reached her at last, I found her in my father’s office. The door was wide open, and the light flooded out into the infinitesimally dark hallway. I had never been in my father’s office. I hadn’t even mentioned it on the tour. No one was ever allowed there. Not even my mother. When we weren’t here for the holidays, Dad came here to work when he wasn’t in the field. The bastard was insanely particular about things. He had a certain way of doing things, including the placement of items in his office. If anything was touched or moved even a millimeter,he would know. So, I avoided this space and anything that was his like it was the plague. His wrath was a force to be reckoned with, and he could lose it just as much over something tiny, like how the butter was spread, as something major, like a mistake that got someone hurt.
And yet, here was my Byrd—my girlfriend, my treasure, the light of my life. On the floor of his office. Sobbing. Shaking. Aching. Unraveling. Shattered. Broken in ways I didn’t know how to fix. This was her darkest moment. It wasn’t just the worst I had seen her; I knew it was the worst she had ever been.
I had many nicknames for Byrd. When we first met, I had thought about calling hermi luz. When I saw her playing cello at my party, I felt like someone had just opened the curtains to my first sight of the sun after days of dark nights. She was so bright, from the brilliance of her brown eyes that reminded me of crystals straight from the Earth, to the radiance of her skin, to the infectious nature of her smile, to the bubbliness of her personality. She felt like the light I had found at the end of a long tunnel I had been crawling through for years. But there was something about the nickname that didn’t fit her. It felt too dull in comparison to reality.
But, I had never seen her like this before.
She sat on the floor, hugging her sides with her nails digging into her sweater and skin like her hold was the only way to keep herself together. Despite my girl’s voluptuous curves that I adored, she was what I would call petite. But, right now, it struck me just how small she really was. Her pink locs were a closed curtain around her face. Her sobs echoed throughout the room, raking through her body so hard with such shaking sorrow and agony that I worried they would break her into pieces like my dropped plate. Her skin was so pale, and each cry made her scales ripple down her body as if her dragon wanted to take over. The smell of vomit permeated the room. The pain coursingthrough our connection was so consuming that I was crying more than I ever had in my entire life.
How do you have this much pain within you, Sweetness? If I weren’t here, where would it all go? Would it destroy you entirely? Would it be like a mudslide, eroding you from the inside out and eventually taking you off into the void?
I rushed to her side and crouched down beside her. I lost count of how many times I asked her what was wrong. Through my tears, I pleaded for her to tell me something, anything. I wanted her to give me something to fix. I needed something that I could do to relieve all this hurt and agony. Seeing her like this… This was hell on earth. This was a form of torture I had never thought humanly possible. To be so close to her, so present, and she be so far from me and in so much pain. I hated seeing her this way. I hated seeing her light so snuffed out, and there was nothing I could foresee to reignite it. There was so much suffering in my mate. I wanted to take some of it away, I didn’t care how much it was. As long as she was able to breathe again, I would take it all from her if I could. She didn’t deserve this. Not my girl, notmi tesoro.
I wanted to murder whatever was the cause.
I wanted to ensure it never came to life again.
I wanted to make sure it never touched her again.
I wanted to make it pay, to make it feel just a fraction of what she was feeling, so it would know what it had done and would regret it for the few moments it had left before I destroyed it.
I wanted to dosomething.
As delicately as I could muster, I took Byrd’s face in my hands to get her to look at me. Her cheeks were cool to the touch, but I knew they weren’t from her tears. Byrd had always run colder than I did, and I loved that about her. I was a natural furnace. I ran hot, to the point where I could happily wear shorts and a T-shirt in thirty-degree weather without feeling cold. So,I figured I could always warm her up, and she could cool me down. We were the perfect match for each other.
Plus, it was like my Aunt Tess always said, “Cold hands mean a warm heart.”
As soon as I took her face in my hands, her eyes connected with my own. They were so breathtaking that it made me cry even harder than I already was. Her eyes were autumn leaves, mole sauce made fresh by my mom after hours of work, and dark topazes rivaling the stars and the sun above. My heart squeezed looking into them, especially as they were shiny from her tears and emotions. They were such beautiful gems that I could fall in love with alone.
I kind of did before literally falling for her into an orchestral pit.
I caressed her cheeks, trying to catch all of the tears that were falling from her eyes. They were a relentless torrent, coming without any sense of stopping anytime soon. I tried to send as much grounding as I could through our bond to bring her back to me from this well of pain.
I don’t know how I managed to find my voice, but I said, “I came as soon as I felt you through the bond. What’s wrong, Byrd? Talk to me. Are you okay?”
She choked on a sob, gasping. Then, she turned away from me. She looked toward the wall across from the desk. I hadn’t looked around the room when I first entered. Byrd was my top priority. Always. Everything else was secondary and could wait. But now that I had her in my arms, albeit sobbing, I looked around the space.
