Page 21 of Fanged Embrace
“Laurie…” Her sigh was a warm breath near my ear. “Just let me help you.” Her resigned words held layers of meaning. She wanted to help me track down the organization, and she wanted to help me get home—and I was tired.
I was so very tired.
I kept my head down, awkwardly propped in her arms, and closed my eyes. It felt like defeat, but I forced myself to speak. I had no dignity left to protect anyway. “Okay.”
The walk to my apartment was a blur. By the time we reached the door, my limbs felt like jelly, the aftermath of adrenalineleaving me empty and trembling like a leaf. I fumbled with the keys, and River caught them before they could clang to the ground.
She braced me against her side with an arm around my shoulders and opened the door.
Her expression changed somewhat when her gaze flicked around the dim living room. I weathered the wave of mortification as she took in the clutter. The mess. The discarded trash bags from my half-hearted attempt at cleaning up.
River said nothing. Merely guided me to my sagging bed, helped me sit, and pressed a hand to my chest. I wanted to fight it. I wanted to push back, stand up, and defend the state of my home.
I wanted to explain myself, but I had nothing to say. Nothing that wouldn’t paint me as even more pathetic than I already felt. So I sank back against the pillows under the light pressure of her hand.
“Rest,” she murmured, stepping back once I’d lain down.
My bed squeaked as I jerked onto my side, facing the wall rather than taking in her expression. Fatigue rooted deep in my bones, pressing me into the mattress. I expected her to leave—maybe drop an awkward goodbye. Hell, Iwantedher to leave. Because this was humiliating.
The wreck of my apartment would be the final nail in the coffin. She’d close that door and she wouldn’t look back. She would see that I had nothing to offer her. She would know that I was broken beyond repair.
But she didn’t leave. Instead, I heard the shuffle of movement behind me.
My eyelids felt unbearably heavy, and every muscle protested the idea of staying awake a moment longer. But River wasn’t leaving.Why?
I managed to roll over just enough to catch a glimpse of what she was up to—and found myself thoroughly confused.
River was picking up junk, dropping things into the abandoned trash bag with quiet commitment. She had her coat slung over the sofa and her shoes standing at the door, flitting around the small space like a modern-day Cinderella.
I stared, mouth slack, as she shoveled takeout boxes aside. When she glanced back at me, there was something vaguely apologetic about her expression, but it was topped with a smirk—like she knew some would call it intrusive and didn’t care. She was going to do it anyway.
I was too stumped to protest. Too drained to summon the energy to complain. And if I was being honest, the quiet shuffle of River moving around the apartment was… comforting.
She stepped lightly, moving slowly through the mess. I watched, slanted on the mattress, head half-buried in a pillow I hadn’t washed in weeks. Her footsteps were slow and careful, so as not to rattle me further, probably. But the muted rustle of plastic bags, the soft click of cups being set on the counter—those small, ordinary sounds felt strangely soothing.
I tried to stay awake, to be on guard, to maybe scowl when she looked my way, just to make a point. But my eyes drooped with every shuffling step.
My body felt heavy, the earlier adrenaline ebbing away. No nightmares lapped at the edges of my mind yet. Just the quiet hiss of the faucet when River found the sink, the barely-there thud of a cupboard opening, the scratch of a chair leg. It all merged into a soft, unobtrusive rhythm.
A faint pang of embarrassment tried to stir in my chest—knowing she saw how I lived. But right then, mortification took a back seat to exhaustion. Maybe I should have been furious at her for meddling. But I couldn’t conjure the anger. It just felt… nice, if I allowed myself that fleeting indulgence.
So I let go. I let her do… whatever. Burrowing deeper into the pillows, I blew out a final, disgruntled exhale and closed my eyes.
Sleep claimed me with startling ease.
When I blinked awake again, the apartment was swathed in darkness. I turned my head, rubbing a knuckle at my bleary eyes.
The clock on my nightstand read just past four in the morning and the events of the day came rushing back all at once. My pulse jumped and I jolted upright—but no tendrils of night terrors followed me.
I felt… oddly calm. No screaming, no fear. I couldn’t recall any dreams at all, let alone the usual horrors.
My muddled mind remained mildly confused, the remnants of a deep sleep slowing my thoughts to a crawl. I squinted into the darkness, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Something was different. Actually, a few things were different.
The blanket was tucked around me, more neatly than I had ever managed myself. The smell of stale takeout was less overwhelming, too. A glance at the living room revealed a handful of garbage bags lined up by the door—River’s doing. As the rest of my apartment took shape in the dark, I could make out dishes standing sentinel beside the sink—clean, stacked neatly. A folded pile of laundry rested on the sofa.
River herself was gone now. So were her coat and shoes, not a trace of her left behind except a slightly cleaner apartment and the confliction she’d wrought in my head.
Part of me bristled at the thought of letting a vampire—someone I barely trusted—see so much of my life. She’d been knee-deep in my mess, and I shouldn’t have allowed that. Another part whispered that it wasn’t so awful, letting someone else carry a bit of the weight for once.
