“Ask me tomorrow.” The painkillers had numbed the aches across my body, but my mind felt ready to explode from today. “Do you know who attacked us?”
Sam shook his head, then groaned and rested his face in his palms. “I think this is going to hurt for days. No, I don’t know. I have suspicions, but I didn’t see anyone. Did you?”
“I think there were two. One shooting, who I didn’t see, and then a big man with a mask covering his entire face.”
“That could describe a lot of people.”
“He probably knocked you out so you wouldn’t be able to identify him.” Sam might have figured it out, based on other physical clues and who was currently what age and which gender. I was the only one in the world who wouldn’t be able to even guess. A thousand emotions I thought I’d moved past came rushing back.
“Other than scrapes and bruises, you’re unhurt?”
“Sure.” But the whole situation infuriated me. There was Sam with his experience and the way he kept alternating between friendly and more than friendly; I’d been attacked somewhere I should have felt safe—creepy white stone walls notwithstanding—and then I was constantly reminded that I was the only nosoul in existence. The only person who didn’t see the beginning of Heart, or know everyone, or have something to contribute.
The butterfly costume had been the real me. Like me, it hadn’t lasted long. Wouldn’t be there in the morning.
I marched into the washroom and scooped up the silk and wire shreds. Futilely, I yanked at it as though I could rip it in two, but it was too strong, even destroyed.
With a wordless shriek, I flung it across the washroom, picked it up and threw it again. Wire clattered across stone and wood, but no matter how many times I hurled the costume remnants, I didn’t feel better. It was too light, too easy, but there was nothing heavier I could throw, nothing that was mine, anyway.
Everything here was Sam’s.
Costume included.
“Ana?”
“What?” I yelled, and spun to face him.
He stood in the washroom doorway, wearing confusion and something I couldn’t identify. Pain? His head hurt. My fit probably made things worse.
I swallowed back tears. “Sorry. Maybe, since we don’t know who did a bad job of trying to kill us, we should just go to bed.” That would be better than subjecting either of us to this, and if I accidentally cried, only my pillow would witness it.
His gaze traveled from me to the costume, and the line between his eyes said he’d figured out why I was so angry. “I want to tell you something.”
“I don’t want to hear it.” I wanted to scream and kick things, but I couldn’t do that if he tried to make me feel better.
No, I wanted to be back at the masquerade, so close I could hear his heart beating over the music. I wanted that moment when there was no question who he was and I had a brave impulse—and I kissed him. I wanted him to need me like that again.
“I want to feel real.” The words escaped before I realized, and I’d have fled the washroom in horror if he hadn’t been standing in the doorway. Instead, I turned away, leaned on the counter, and squeezed my eyes shut. Warmth trickled out.
His good arm circled my waist. “You feel real to me.” When he tugged me toward him, I went. I didn’t know what else to do. “I can’t imagine what’s going on inside you now.”
“Everything.” I mumbled into his nightshirt. “There’s a thunderstorm inside me, swirling everything around.”
He kissed the top of my head and didn’t let go.
“Can’t you make it stop?” My throat ached with struggling not to cry more. I hated this, halfway hated him, except how I wanted him as much as I wanted music.
“I’d give anything to make things right for you.” He caressed my cheek, my hair, my back. Everywhere he touched, the angry fires cooled. I wished he’d touch my heart. “But I can’t. I can help, but the hard work is all up to you. If you don’t feel real, no one else can do it for you. I promise, though, you’ve always felt real to me. From the moment I saw you jump off the cliff.”
“Sometimes I still feel like I’m jumping off the cliff.”
He nodded and kissed my head again. “Can I tell you something?”
If he felt that strongly about it, I had little choice. “Okay.”
“Come out of the washroom.” He nudged me toward the door. “It won’t make your thunderstorm stop, but maybe it will help. Proof you’re real to me. Important.”
I looked up and sought his haggard face, his eyes. How could I be important? I was an afterthought, five thousand years later. A mistake, because Ciana was gone. I was the dissonant note on the end of a masterpiece symphony. I was the brushstroke that ruined the painting.
“Come on,” he urged, and I allowed him to guide me back into the bedroom, where he draped a thick white blanket over my shoulders. We curled up in the top corner of the bed, by the headboard and the wall. “Are you comfortable?” he asked, when I was leaning against him.