I shut my eyes, listening to the storm batter at the windows like hundreds of fists. I can feel the steady lift and fall of his chest, delivering unneeded oxygen. His hands are cold against the thin material of my shirt, his arms wrapped around my chest as I lay against him. We're both sitting, though he's the only pressed to the headboard. The air is freezing, from all the spirits riled up. I'd be freezing if he hadn't wrapped me in the rough linen blanket.
"Are you scared?"
I open my eyes, but I don't look at him. Instead I watch the room, so much darker now without the lights. The candles I lit have puttered out at some point, leaving us in the late afternoon dark. I can see the pale mist of my breath, like my essence escaping through my lips.
"Yes."
His arms tighten around me, pressing me close to him. "I won't let them hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you, not ever."
I pick up one of his hands, placing it between mine. I lift his hand, kissing it gently. "It's not me I'm worried about."
He snorts. "They can't hurt me. They can't hurt any of us."
"Your spirit is still here." I say, so quietly I almost can't hear myself. I lace my fingers in his longer ones. The hands of a musician, or an artist. But there's so much blood on them, washed away but still present in essence. My necessary evil. My selfish immorality. He's hurt so many people, done so much wrong… but the only idea worse than forgiving such unspeakable acts, is not forgiving them.
Tate's darkness echoes my own. Makes me feel human, when everyone else makes me a monster. But those people are coming to take him away from me. Tate doesn't know how to fear anymore – not physical pain anyway. He hasn't seen what I have.
"So long as you exist… you can be hurt."
