Page 28 of Little Bird
I wasn’t afraid of the dark when I was a kid—that was Gabe, honestly—but now it sends a thrill of terror rushing through my veins, and all I can think about is that I have to get away. Bad things happen in the darkness. Things come for me that I can’t see coming, and if I can’t see, I have nowhere to run.
Right now, though, I can remember that this is a big room. Sure, there are tables around the place, but there’s also plenty of open space, and that means I can get away.
And no, my conscious mind isn’t in charge of that decision. The moment the dark overtakes me, my subconscious remembers what happens in my stepfather’s house in the dark, and my body goes into fight or flight mode.
I erupt from the wall where I was leaning as I listened to Gabe and rush blindly into the room, my breath short and my heart hammering. The first thing I do is run right into a table and cry out. I bounce off it, though, and keep going. My mind is screaming at me to stop and be calm, but my instincts are on high alert, and I can’t stop myself. I’m in a full-blown panic attack, fear covering me like a second skin, and when I run into the second table and send something crashing to the floor, I nearly scream again.
“Taryn?” Gabe’s voice asks sharply. “What are you doing, trying to tear the place down? Where are you?”
Gabe.
Gabe’s here.
The thought brings my conscious mind closer to the surface, but then I bounce off something else and feel the brush of someone’s fingers over my skin, and it sends me right back into the spiral. I gasp and run from the ghost of those fingers, but the presence comes after me, and though I can’t see it, I know it’s bigger than me. Faster.
Stronger.
When it catches me, I fight it, screaming in pure terror at the idea of being caught, but it pulls me close and wraps arms around me, holding me against its body and shushing me.
“God, girl, what’s gotten into you? Stop, stop!”
The voice is familiar, and I fight to calm my hammering heart. That isn’t a monster, and it’s not someone who wants to hurt me. It’s Gabe. Just Gabe.
My Gabe. My best friend.
I take a deep, shuddering breath and lean into him, breathing in the scent of wood and gun smoke coming from his shirt. Gabe. It’s Gabe.
Christ, I need to get a grip. And a drink. And a good night’s sleep.
“Gabe?” I ask weakly.
“I am,” he replies. “I’m right here. Shhh.”
His arms tighten around me and the panic ebbs back down into the pit of my stomach, where it always starts. And I begin to feel monumentally stupid. God, he’s going to think I’m a complete lunatic. Who the hell panics like that just because the lights go out? It was probably just a short circuit or something, and I was running around acting like we were about to be murdered.
“What’s going on?”
His words are a whisper against my ear, and his hands have flattened out against my back now. He’s rubbing gently, like I’m a horse he’s trying to calm, and he’s big and solid and so, so safe. I’m safe. I can tell the truth.
Except I can’t. Because something inside me doesn’t want him to know how bad my life has been in the city.
“I just don’t like the dark,” I whisper.
He chuckles. “So you run around in it trying to break everything you can? What are you trying to do, scare the monsters away?”
“Something like that,” I say, giving him at least part of the truth.
And then the lights come back on and we’re standing in the middle of the workroom with his arms wrapped around me and my face buried in his chest like I’m a child who needed rescuing and he was the hero who took the job.
“What the fuck is going on in here?” a voice that doesn’t belong to either of us snaps.
Gabe and I both freeze, then jump away from each other like we’ve just been caught doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing—which isn’t far from the truth. I whirl to find Gunner standing in the doorway of the room, his eyes snapping from Gabe to me and back, and a look of pure fury on his face.
“What’s going on?’ he asks again. “The lights go out and I turn on the generator and then get back here to find you two canoodling in the dark?”
My eyes swivel to Gabe’s and I see the same combination of laughter and panic that I’m feeling. Hysterical laughter bubbles up my throat, and I work to keep it down. I don’t know Gunner well anymore, but I don’t think this is the right time to start laughing.
Gabe evidently doesn’t feel the same restraint. “Canoodling?” he asks, his voice shaking with repressed giggles.
